Return to Ered Luin
by Painton
Summary: After surviving their long and dangerous quest into the Mountains of Angmar and the Forodwaith, Fili, Kili and Betta return to Ered Luin. The brothers prepare for their quest to Erebor, but how will Thorin respond to his nephews' homecoming? What will he say when he learns that Fili has come home not with gold... but a wife! - Sequel to Quest to Forochel. Fili/OC
1. Ch1: The Journey Home

**Well, you know what they say about sequels… **

**And yet, this tale is indeed the sequel to my previous story, Quest to Forochel. I will try to write it so that you don't _have_ to have read the first part, but you should really read the first part. I promise, it's quite good :)**

**As usual, ****I ****own nothing that is Tolkien's. He is the master, and I am but a humble flatterer enamored with his works (and with Peter Jackson's interpretation of them, too). Betta is my own OC, and I have grown quite fond of her, but this story is really about Fili and Kili, their preparations for the Quest to Erebor and their relationship with their grim uncle, Thorin.**

**If you enjoy this tale, REVIEW! If you don't enjoy it, REVIEW ANYWAY and let me know what I'm doing wrong.**

**-Paint**

* * *

Even in March, in the north of Forodwaith and as far south as the foothills of the Mountains of Angmar, the land lay under a bitter cold wind and huge drifts of deep snow, but south of the great Icebay of Forochel, the weather was growing mild and the snow was not deep. The high peaks of Ered Luin were a wall against the gentle winds of Belegaer, but they also collected the worst of the snow upon their peaks. The air was cold east of the mountains and in winter there was little traffic between the River Lhun and the icy beaches of Forochel, but a long and winding north-south road had been built far away from _the_ North-South Road. It was used mainly by the hearty ice-traders who were all of the race of Men. Many years had passed since the Dwarves went that way in any noticeable number. Gundabad and the Eastern Road through Angmar were too dangerous to allow the descendants of Durin to visit their ancestral home.

The road between the Lhun and Forochel was difficult, but the winter of 2941 had been mild (for those who had not ventured farther north than the North Downs) and spring was come early. The scent of the season was in the air, and the northern arm of the river that would normally have remained frozen well into April had begun to crack and thaw so that it was dangerous to attempt the crossing with any weight of wagons.

And it was many wagons that wound down from the north and passed through the few villages and about the even fewer homesteads built beside the road. Pale faces looked out of windows as they rode by and it was a curious sight they saw.

First in line were many grim and frowning Men dressed in heavy fur coats though their faces were still tanned by the sunny lands of the south from whence they had come. They drove five wagons piled high with seal skins, frozen slabs of whale meat and jars of fish oil fresh that they brought from the Lossoth villages of the north. At the last northern village, a company of ice-traders had joined the caravan, riding with them while the weather was cold, but as the air grew warmer, the ice-traders quickened their speed and rode swiftly on ahead. Theirs was a race against time to bring their precious cargo south to Mithlond before pure ice turned to cold water.

Last in line of the long caravan were six Dwarves upon ponies and three more that drove a single wagon nearly empty of all but rope and tent. These were the merchants of Gloin, son of Groin, and they had set out from Dunland many weeks before. Groin's son did not trade for goods but for gold, and each Dwarf carried a purse beneath his shirt that had grown heavier with every stop they had made along the way. All that their wagon had once carried had been changed and changed-over many times until even the little that Gloin had bought from the Lossoth was sold back to the Men of his own caravan in exchange for gold. Only his clever mind could have calculated the profit of the journey – though a profit had certainly been made – and yet there was no doubt among the Men that they had come out the worst for his work.

The goodwill between the two companies of the caravan had been lost upon the road. The Dwarves would have ridden apart from the Men either way, but once the extent of their loss had been made known, the Men had widened the space between them and neither word nor man bridged the gap but what was absolutely necessary.

Trapped there, within the no-man's-land that had been formed between the two races, rode not a man but a woman, a single pony and its rider. If the strangeness of the mixed-race caravan had not been enough to draw curious eyes, then surely she would have.

The woman was small and pale, her long dark hair hung in tangled locks and half-braids. Her coat was clearly not made in Eriador but belonged to a faraway land and its wear and tear proclaimed that it had seen better days many years ago. The woman rode well, but she sat stiffly in her saddle, her shoulders bowed down under a heavy weight and her right arm wrapped in a sling. She held close against her chest as if it gave her great pain. Even so, her eyes were stern and her jaw proudly set. She might have ridden alone for all the thought she seemed to give to the rest of the caravan; to any who saw her without knowing her tale, she seemed a lost wanderer who happened to turn onto the road between the Men and Dwarves without realizing they were one travelling party.

Betta knew that they were a single caravan, and that she was a begrudged part of it. She thought bitterly of the promise that Fili had made that she would ride along with him upon his pony to rest her injured arm. That promise had lasted only long enough for him to speak with his fellow Dwarves, for _they_ would not have a human among them. They were not like Fili and his brother.

She had been disappointed, but not surprised, on the day they set out, when she learned that she was expected to ride her old pony by herself. She was disappointed, but not surprised, to learn that Fili was unwilling to stand up to his fellow Dwarves and defend her.

Her pony's hoof struck a stone beneath the snow and stumbled. Betta's arm was jostled and she gasped at the sudden shock of pain that shot up to her shoulder and across her chest. It had been more than two weeks since the Lossoth healer had taken his bone-saw to her right forearm and cut away the mangled hand and wrist that had been crushed beneath the cold waters of Angmar's underground rivers, but she could still feel the tingling of the cold air against her invisible fingertips. She closed her eyes and imagined the missing hand rolled up tight into a fist to protect the fingers that were not there from the bitter wind. The phantoms chill faded and she sighed.

The first day of their ride had been the most difficult when her wound had been fresh and unused to being moved. She had struggled to learn how to change her own bandages, to wash the fresh scars with melted snow, and to endure the constant pain that was like a fire burning up her arm and down her back until half her body was numb. That first night had been a nightmare that she could not wake up from because she could not fall asleep. Every way that she lay hurt her, and she felt vulnerable without Fili or Kili sleeping at her back.

Four days it had taken to deaden the pain in her arm, and by then her anger had dulled as well. She no longer blamed Fili for forgetting her; she blamed herself instead for being foolish enough to think that nothing would change once he was back among his own kind.

The sound of muted voices reached her ears and she opened her eyes. She had ridden too close to the company of Men and they had begun to look back at her and to murmur angrily to themselves. Betta checked her pony. The animal was not happy. It did not like to ride alone when its fellows were near enough to smell. It whinnied in protest, but Betta knew that she was stuck were she was. She missed the ice-traders; they, at least, had spoken with her and told her all the news of the south. They were Men, but they traded with Elves, Dwarves and Men equally, and dealt with each race without prejudice or fear.

The other company of Men, those from Dunland and Bree who had come north with Gloin's Dwarves looked sideways at Betta and sneered at her. She had heard them talk, back at the Lossoth village, whispering behind their hands about her. She was a human who had spent too much time among Dwarves. Their scent was on her and her own kind did not trust her. Gloin's Dwarves did not trust her either. She did not need to understand their words to know what was being said when she spoke with Fili and Kili as if they were her friends.

They _had been_ her friends, in the wild, open lands. What they were to her now, she did not know. For five days, she had ridden alone, caught between Men and Dwarves as the gap between the two races widened. At any point, she might have reminded Fili of his promise to help her or called upon Kili who would have spoken for her, but she did not. She was proud and, what was more, she did not wish to get between them and their kin. Gloin was their cousin and had a greater claim to their loyalty than any human woman.

Betta felt the fingers of her right hand begin to tingle again. She pressed her arm against her chest, but no matter how hard she tried to pretend, she had no hand to close, no fingers to breathe upon. Her right-hand glove was in her pack, folded away and useless to her. A tear fell from her eye and traced a cold line down her cheek. She wanted nothing more than to see Fili smile again and to hear him promise that she would not be abandoned once they were back at Ered Luin, but she knew that he could promise no such thing. Among his own kind, he had changed.

.

A dozen yards behind Betta's sulking pony, Gloin rode at the head of his small company and chatted cheerfully with the nephews of Thorin Oakenshield. Fili and Kili rode on either side of their cousin, doing their best to hide their indifference to their cousin's words. Gloin had turned a good profit on his journey and he was looking ahead to a glad reunion with his fair wife once they reached Thorin's Halls, those two things being nearly all that he had spoken of for three days.

"I have been far too long in Dunland," he was saying – not for the first time, "and I will be glad to see Fris again." He sighed. "But it was good luck that brought such good fortune my way, and this journey has been well worth the delay." He chuckled to himself and clearly expected one of the brothers to ask to know more.

"An, I know there seemed little profit in it at the start," Gloin pressed on, "but there are few merchants willing to risk the northern lands, and I thought to myself… well, why not?" He fingered the silver chain about his neck.

"Yes, and you are lucky lads that I found you when I did, trapped in that dismal place. What would you have done without me!?" He laughed. "Rocks no larger than my fist and not a decent bit of iron but what has been bent into fishhooks!" He shook his head but did not really pity the tall folk who would live in what he deemed to be such squalor.

Kili sighed and pinched his ear to keep from nodding off. He had little interest in the comings and goings of merchant-Dwarves, and had tried many times to change the subject, but his cousin would talk of nothing else. One glance at Fili told him that there would be no help from that quarter; his brother had been alternately staring ahead sadly at Betta and looking guiltily down at his hands all day.

Gloin had fallen silent and frowned grumpily when neither brother filled his deliberate pause. Kili sought for a question that might yield more information than the profits of trade. "How was it, exactly, that you came to be so far north of Angmar, cousin?" he asked. "You mentioned something about some trade deal or other but have told us none of the details of your adventures on the road. It is a dangerous journey wandering so far north of Bree…"

"I _have_ told you the details," Gloin groused good-naturedly, "but you have not been listening. Your mind is elsewhere, I think."

"Well, tell it again. I am listening now," Kili said, more than a little annoyed. Gloin was a good Dwarf and loyal, but he had never been Kili's favorite cousin. His son, Gimli, was a better friend to the brothers and it was for Gimli's sake that Kili kept his temper now. "You were trading in Dunland, last I heard," he said. "Why did you leave? Was the market there not as good as you expected?"

"Ah, lad!" Gloin cried. "Dunland is a terrible place for a hard-working Dwarf! They're all penny-pinchers and coin-counters there. One Dwarf cannot even trust another to treat with him in a fair trade, not since the Hillmen began spreading their worthless wares about town and cheating every soul from the Gap to the Glanduin."

He sighed. "Yes, I was in Dunland, until about two months ago. T'was not yet the new year, late in December, I think, though I don't recall the exact week. I had word from your uncle that I and all his close kin were wanted back at Ered Luin, so we packed up and…"

"Wanted?" Kili echoed in surprise. "Thorin sent for you?"

Fili looked up and looked around. "Thorin? What does Thorin say?" There was worry in his words and more than a little apprehension in his eyes.

Gloin looked back and forth between the two brothers. His eyes were sharp, and he touched two fat fingers to his nose as he said, "Your uncle says… nothing. Nothing that shall be spoken of here." He nodded ahead toward the Men to make his meaning clear, not that it would have stopped Kili from demanding to know more, but he knew that Gloin could be as tight with his tongue as he was with his purse strings.

"As I said," Gloin went on, "I was in Dunland not long ago when I heard that Thorin wanted us home. Some, such as I, he sent for by name," He puffed up his chest proudly, "but his message was that he would welcome any of his close kin who were willing to come. Nori was with me at the time, and I'm sure he'll make the journey… if he can get off his fat-"

"Where is Gimli?" Kili interrupted, not eager to hear Gloin's thoughts on their less respectable cousin. "He went with you to Dunland, did he not?"

"Aye, he went with me and left with me, too. He'll have arrived at the Mountains by now, I don't doubt, and be with his mother. Lucky lad! I parted with him, oh, about six weeks ago upon the Greenway – though it was far more brown than green at that time. I was not about to take _him_ north and risk his wandering off into Troll-country. There may be few trolls in those hills nowadays, but the boy is far too young for such adventures, whatever he may think about it."

"Six weeks…" Fili murmured, turning his eyes ahead once more. It was little more than six weeks ago that he and his brother were both still living quite comfortably within Thorin's halls, roaming the town below and never dreaming that a chance meeting with a human woman would send them high into the hills to fight vicious wolves and raging snow-trolls.

"Yes, six weeks," Gloin said, ignorant of his cousin's thoughts. "After I heard Thorin's message, I packed up to go but I had business and a few things of my own to clear up – no reason to waste the journey. We made several stops along the North-South road all the way up to Bree. I meant to stop there a few days and then go back and cross the Brandywine at Sarn Ford before heading west… and then we came across this fine company of Men…" He nodded to the tall folk ahead of them and his laugh told what he really thought.

"I met their leader at Bree," he explained, "and learned that they were heading north into the empty lands beneath the Ettenmoors to trade what they had with the few farms there and any Rangers that they could find. Of course Farn started in on them about the orcs and hill-men and the dangers of trolls… by the end of the night, the Men were shaking in their boots at the thought of the northern lands." He laughed again, loud enough that several of the Men looked back and scowled at him, but he did not care.

"I had a few hearty lads to spare who were willing to go, and when it came time to leave Bree, we divvied up our stores and I sent Gimli on ahead with what I had promised along the western road. The rest, we took north with our axes and swords, hiring ourselves out as the tall folk's guard. It meant taking the long way 'round, but gold is gold, eh, lad?"

Kili shrugged. He admired well-wrought gold as much as any Dwarf and knew the value of the coins in his pocket, but he had never understood the eagerness with which his cousin counted what coins he had against what he might earn.

"So, you and these Men went north to the Ettenmoors?" he asked.

"Oh, not so far as that. We swung northwest across the wastes and made for the North Downs, stopping among the homesteads and trading with the Shirefolk that we met along the way. There's not really much use for guards up there. Hardly any folk of any kind but the Rangers, and we saw neither hide nor hair of any troll. We challenged a few skittish orcs upon the northern edge of the plain, but they were scared off easily enough.

"Always get your pay up-front, lad!" Gloin said, laughing. "It saves a great deal of trouble in the end. The tall folk were not glad when they realized that they had hired guards for no reason, and that we were taking nearly all the trade from them!

"It was a pleasant ride for us, though, even if it was a bit cold at the end. We made good time on the road toward Emyn Uial, and if we had kept up the pace, I might have beaten Gimli home. We found your ponies near to that old bridge, by the way. You remember the one, don't you, lad?" He looked at Kili. "Or, no… it was your brother I took there, wasn't it…" He looked to Fili instead, but Fili was not listening. Gloin followed Fili's gaze and frowned when he saw that it was the human woman who had stolen Fili's attention away.

"You found them near the bridge, you say?" Kili said quickly, hoping to distract his cousin. "We lost them many leagues north of there. A pack of wolves came upon us in the night and they bolted. We were forced to go on foot from there."

"Hmm…" Gloin shook his head and looked away from Fili. "Wolves, you say? Lucky that you escaped, but I never saw any of them around. Heard them, though, howling in the distance. We met the ice-traders the day after and they filled the tall folk there with talk of profits in the far north. They hadn't fared as well as we had in Eriador and decided to keep going rather than turn back south. I had iron left to trade and your ponies seemed strong enough once they were fed that we hitched them to the heavier wagons and went on.

"At Emyn Uial, we turned north and then… well, you know the rest. We stopped at two villages of the snow-people before we got word to go on to the one you were at. Lucky you were that I did not turn back! It was farther than I meant to go." He smiled, and Kili smiled, too. It _had_ been lucky that Gloin had found them. Without the Dwarven company and with no money or no ponies to ride, he didn't know how long it would have taken him and his brother to get home. They might easily have arrived too late to join Thorin's quest.

Kili smiled but his eyes drifted from Gloin to his brother, and he saw the sadness in Fili's eyes. Gloin urged his pony forward, riding between the two brothers and blocking Kili's gaze.

"Yes," Gloin said, "I thank my lucky boots and good business sense that I discovered you when I did. What was Thorin thinking, letting you two wander off that way? Well, in a few more days, we'll be back at Ered Luin, and he'll have you both back under thumb."

.

Night fell early in winter across the northern lands and all was dark and quiet. The mismatched assortment of wagons and animals made camp beneath a long, low overhang of rock less than a day's ride from the shores of the River Lhun, but Gloin meant to go another day south before attempting to ford the frigid waters near the crossing that Fili had used many weeks ago when he led his own much smaller company across to the eastern shore. There, the river was shallow and there would be less chance of their wagon being overwhelmed by the grinding blocks of broken ice that floated down from its still-frozen source. Before then, Gloin meant to bid farewell to the company of Men; the tall folk with their heavily laden wagons must go all the way down to the ferry above the confluence of the Little Lhun before they could cross over and head toward the town.

After the crossing, it was an easy ride west to Thorin's Halls, and Gloin looked forward to it, but Betta was uncertain. She had long ago made up her mind to follow Fili at least as far as the town beneath Ered Luin, but she had not yet decided whether she would stay there and for how long. In her heart, she had begun to doubt whether she could ever call those stony hills home.

Both Men and Dwarves had arranged their wagons in a line between the trees and the stone wall behind their two separate campsites. The Dwarves had built their own fire and roasted their own game that they had caught among the scattered trees that grew on either side of the road as they travelled. It was mainly squirrel and rabbit, but they mixed the fresh meat with what was left of their preserves into a fine stew, not a bite of which was offered to the Men.

Not that the tall folk would have had any of it. They had not bothered to hunt but had as much as they needed to eat from their own supplies and from the fish that they had bought from the Lossoth. The scent of fried sea-salt and fat mingled with the smoke of simmering stew, both equally delicious, but the Men would not have swallowed even a mouthful of the Dwarven fare, and the Dwarves would rather choke than eat fish from a Man's frying pan.

Both camps set their watches for the night, each not trusting the other to look out for any but his own, yet even the Men whose fears had once been stoked by the whispering of Dwarves now knew that there was little chance of danger. The usual assortment of bandits and thieves would be found in these hills, of course, but they would not dare assault so large and well-armed a company, and more wary folk than they would have laughed to think of orcs venturing so near to Elvish lands. It was but a stone's throw to the Grey havens in the south, and Forlond lay beyond.

Kili sat alone on the ground at the edge of the Dwarves' camp closest to the camp of the tall folk. He pushed the food about in his bowl, eating it but with little appetite. _He_ knew that some orcs did indeed venture west. Hadn't he seen with his own eyes the trouble that they might cause? He frowned as he listened to the laughter and songs of the Men and remembered the exciting tales that Betta had told them of her own people in the south. He would rather have heard new tales from the tall folk than listened to the same old legends that the Dwarves told about their own fires, and which he would hear again anyway once they were back at Ered Luin.

What was the point in travelling if you only stayed among your own kind? Kili thought to himself and knew that it was a very un-Dwarf-like thought to think.

Fili stepped out of the darkness of the trees behind his brother. He re-fastened the buckle of his belt as he approached the camp. Kili handed him his bowl as he sat down, but Fili had even less appetite than his little brother. He, too, was wrapped up in memories of the past, of two dead men lying in the dirt beneath the evergreens upon the road to the Lhun. He remembered Betta kneeling down beside the body of the boy, and how strange it had been to see her grieving for one who had once attacked. Of course, that had been before he knew her history and had heard of the deaths of her five brothers. Fili sighed and wished for the nights when he and his brother had sat alone with their guide and laugh and tease each other without fear of censure.

Kili tipped up his bowl to drink the last few drops of broth. He had tasted real hunger beneath the mountains of Angmar and would never again turn down good food. Looking over at his brother, he saw that Fili had hardly touched his stew but knew that it was no daintiness of appetite that held him back. He looked toward the darker shadows between the two camps where Betta made her own small camp, and he sighed.

"You should go talk to her," he told Fili, "while Gloin is busy with the wagon. Bring her something to eat. She cannot always be swallowing the Lossoth's dried fish or whatever it is that the tall folk toss her way."

"They are her own race," Fili said, but he stood up as if he meant to do as Kili suggested. At the same moment, at tall, narrow shadow stepped away from the Men's camp and walked toward Betta's tent. Fili sat down again.

"There he is again," he grumbled, his hand tightening into a fist.

Kili watched the young man make his way toward Betta's pup tent – a tent which that same young man had provided for her when the Dwarves insisted that they had no canvas to spare. It was one of those items that merchants carried in anticipation of some misfortune – a broken wagon-wheel or injured horse – that would force them to leave behind part of their goods, covered and hidden, to be retrieved later, but it was also warm and dry. Gloin _would_ have a similar tent of his own, but he had conveniently forgotten about it.

The lad's name was Tom, Fili knew, but little else had they been able to discover since the two camps were so stubbornly separated. Tom had begun to be friendly with Betta while the company was still at the Lossoth village when she was still sleeping and eating with Ix's family in their hut, and it was not until they set out on the long road home that she had found herself caught between the two races. With no company but her own, she had gratefully accepted Tom's friendship and was glad that he ignored the jeers of his people to sit with her.

Each night, after the caravan had made camp, it was Tom who took care of Betta's pony, bushing it down and leading it to the pickets with the Men's horses. He built her fire and brought her food. He sat and ate with her, too, and it was he not Fili who spoke to her and kept her spirits high which might otherwise have fallen too low to bear.

Tonight, Tom arrived at Betta's tent with bowl and cup in hand. He knelt down and looked inside, but the woman herself had gone into the trees a few minutes before and had not yet returned. The young man sat down to wait for her, feeding a few sticks into the fire.

"She is not there. Leave the food and go, damn you," Fili muttered under his breath.

Kili rolled his eyes. He understood why Betta could no longer share the same tent as he and his brother, and why she did not feel welcome among their kin, but it had been Fili's choice to distance himself from her, to avoid speaking to her or offering her any assistance that she needed. He might easily have ridden beside her at any point in the journey, suffering only sharp looks and a disappointed frown from Gloin. None of the other Dwarves who were with them would dare to speak against Thorin's heir.

Betta's familiar shape emerged from the trees and she walked slowly back to her tent. She sat down beside Tom and took the bowl that he handed to her. They ate quietly together, and Kili strained his ears to hear what was said, but though the wind would sometimes carry to him the murmur of their voices, he could not make out the words. Fili scowled and listened, also. He set aside his dinner.

Kili took up the bowl and put it back into his brother's hands. "Finish it," he ordered. "You will not last long eating only your jealousy."

"He is a boy, not even a _grown_ man," Fili muttered, "a stripling with no beard…"

"Then you have no reason to be jealous. What do you expect her to do when you ignore her for days?" Kili shook his head. "They talk, that is all. You think that she could love him as she loves you? Ha!" Kili laughed at the thought of any woman choosing any man over his brother.

"And yet, he is of her own race," Fili said. He ate his cold stew without tasting it and set aside the empty bowl.

It was about the same time that Tom and Betta finished their own meal. The young man stood up and bid her good night then left her.

"There, he is gone now," Kili said. "Go and speak with her."

But Fili shook his head. "Gloin will be finished with the wagon soon. It does not take long to patch a wheel, and I would rather postpone that argument until I must deal with Thorin." He saw Kili's disappointed look and forced himself to smile. "Besides, Betta is a clever woman. She knows why I keep my distance."

He turned his eyes back to her tent, but she had put out the fire and had crawled inside to sleep. "Once we are all back at Ered Luin, when she is stowed away safe and secret in Nan's cabin, then we shall have our time together," he said. "Then, we shall…"

"You are a fool if you think so," Kili said so sharply that he shook his brother out of his musings and Fili looked up in surprise. "You are a fool to waste a single moment with her when we have the dragon in Erebor breathing down our necks!"

"Hush!" Fili said. "Do not speak that name! We are too far south, and you heard what Gloin said. There may be other ears listening…"

"Then I will not say the name, but I will say again that you are a fool to neglect her." Kili was impatient with his brother's stubbornness, but he was also angry with himself. He knew that he, too, might have ridden ahead with Betta or spoken to her upon the road. He might have done so with less loss of dignity than the heir of Oakenshield. What did it matter what Gloin thought of their friendship with a Betta? She had done more than enough to earn their love and loyalty during their Quest to Forochel.

"Perhaps you are wise to be jealous, brother," Kili said after a long pause. "After all, she is not a Dwarf-woman, and you know that the tall folk are not bound to their first love. Some of them even marry twice or more and their lives are short. Betta loves you now, but for how long if you continue to ignore her?"

Fili's face had been pensive, but now he looked at Kili with open fear. "She would not…" he protested.

"Whether or not she would, I know that if _I_ were in your place, Fili, I would not risk it. I would not waste one minute that I had with the woman that I loved."

"Be glad that you are _not_ in my place," Fili said. "I hope that you never are."

At that moment, Gloin joined them and interrupted their talk. The broken wheel had been patched and he sat down, plucking a few stray splinters of wood from his thick, red beard. "That is the last time that I purchase any metal-work from the tall folk!" he said.

Kili knew what was expected of him. "Why did you, cousin?" he asked obediently.

"That wheel picked the wrong time to split, lad, the very worst time. We were miles out from Bree and not a forge to be found nor any friendly Dwarves. The Rangers are good folk, I suppose, if you are in for that sort of thing – wandering about and worrying all others with your strange ways. Their iron got us farther than the brittle bolts of the forges of Bree would have done, but true Dwarven steel would have gotten us farther. It is lucky that Thralin has his kit with him, and Thrin can make iron out of sand, given time. It is only a patch, but a patch is enough to get us home, eh?"

He smiled and looked at the brothers, but Kili had hardly heard his cousin's talk and Fili was still looking into the shadows that hid Betta's tent.

Gloin's smile disappeared. "Now," he said sternly, "I have not yet heard how it was that the two of you came to be so far north… and how you were roped into wandering with a human woman." He looked closely at Fili, but the night was dark and the fires were distant; he could not read the expression on his face. "I cannot imagine that Thorin would consent to such a journey, and she certainly does not look as if she could afford a Dwarven guard, not even of common Dwarves…"

"Thorin _did_ consent to it," Kili said, "and for reasons that we will not speak of here." He gave Gloin a pointed look that spoke of other conversations and other words that the old Dwarf had refused to say.

Gloin stared at him in amazement, unable to imagine any way that Betta's journey might be connected to Erebor or to the two brothers. "But how is she…?"

Kili raised an eyebrow and Gloin shut his mouth. All day, he had resisted Kili's constant questions regarding Thorin's message and what Gloin knew of their future quest. He was not at all pleased at being put off but knew that he could not demand answers without providing them in return.

"Thorin consent to this!" he muttered. "He let you run around Eriador with one of the tall folk's women… a one-handed woman, at that!" He shook his head. "I do not believe it."

"She did not always have only one hand."

Gloin harrumphed into his beard. "That adds little in her favor," he said.

"She saved my life," Kili said, growing angry. "More than once, she saved both our lives, but perhaps you find no _profit_ in that, cousin Gloin."

"She has no gold," he said matter-of-factly, "nor any goods to trade. No, I see no profit in her, and neither should either of you if you were in your right minds. You have had too much travel than is good for a young lad. Your lives would have been safe enough if you had stayed at home."

Kili bit his tongue, knowing that no words of his could change his cousin's mind, but Fili was reminded of the wild wolves upon the foothills of Angmar and the dark tunnels underground. He remembered Kili's pale, bloodless face when the wolves had nearly killed him – but Betta had saved his life. She had saved him again, nearly sacrificing her own life when the orcs attacked them underground, and for that she had lost her hand. She had saved Fili's own life from the snow-troll.

The anger was too much for him to swallow. "You know _nothing_, Gloin!" Fili said sharply and rose to his feet. "You know nothing of Betta and nothing of me if you think that I would value any weight of gold over a good woman and a brave fighter."

"Ha!" Gloin cried, but he was caught by surprise. He had thought that Fili was still the stubborn but soft-spoken Dwarf that he had known many months ago in the Blue Mountains. "I only say what every Dwarf here thinks," he insisted.

"Not every Dwarf," Kili said and stood beside his brother.

"Keep your thoughts to yourself, cousin," Fili said. His hand was on his axe, but he had no intention of drawing it. "If you insult that woman again, we must fight, and I would not willingly raise my hand against my own kin. Tomorrow, Betta will ride with me, and if you do not like it, then ride behind the wagon with the others where you need not see us together."

Fili did not wait for Gloin's sputtered reply. He nodded to his brother and then left the Dwarves' campsite, walking toward Betta's tent. Kili watched as Fili knelt down before the opening. He guessed that his brother spoke to her, but what was her reply could only be imagined. It must have been good, because a moment later, Fili crawled into the low tent with her and Kili sighed. He looked over at Gloin, expecting the old Dwarf to be full of anger and disgust, but Gloin only shook his head sadly.

"It is as I suspected," he said. "Your poor, foolish brother… You would do well to warn him that it is a long and lonely road he walks, Kili."

"He knows it already."

"Does he? Well, I hope that she is worth all the trouble that she will cause." He sighed. "At least he should have waited until after… after… well, you know. These are not the wild lands, and Fili is no common Dwarf that he might throw his life away. He is Thorin's heir, and Thorin will not be glad to hear of this."

"Just as Fili would not be glad to hear that news has reached our uncle's ears before Fili himself brings it to him," Kili said, but frowned and wondered whether it would not be better if they waited to break the news until after Erebor, as his cousin suggested.

Gloin shrugged. "As you like it," he said. "I will keep this secret gladly."

He walked away, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. He left Kili to finish out the watch alone, and it was just as well. Kili could not have slept on a warm, feather bed with so many uncomfortable thoughts stuck in his head.

.

After Fili had told off Gloin and walked away from his cousin and brother, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest and the sweat was cold on his brow. It was as if he had fought a deadly battle and had just escaped with his life, but the true battle was yet to come. Would Betta forgive him his cowardice? And how would he face Thorin if he felt this way after confronting Gloin and with his brother beside him?

He approached the tent anxiously and knelt down. The ground was hard and damp under his knee as he looked into the darkness. The moon lit only the edge of her boot near the entrance; all the rest of her was in shadow.

"Are you awake, Betta," he whispered.

She gave no answer, yet he heard movement inside.

"I have been a fool and full of pride," he said, "but that is nothing new. Will you forgive me? Might I sit with you awhile?"

He heard her quiet breath and finally her voice. "There is no room for sitting," she said. "And it is cold in here, but you are welcome."

He ducked under the low tent and crawled inside. As she said, the pup tent had little room to spare and even a Dwarf sitting down would hit his head on the roof. It was too dark to see, and he could only feel where she was. Betta already lay lengthwise and from head to toe she was nearly as tall as the tent was long. Fili stretched out alongside her, unable to lay anywhere where his side was not pressed against hers, but he had more room to spare at his feet being several inches shorter than she was.

"So, you forgive me, then?" he asked softly.

"There is nothing to forgive," she said, but he knew that she was lying.

"Will you let me stay awhile? This tent is cold, and two bodies may warm it more quickly than one."

"Stay as long as you like," she said. "Stay forever." He smiled and reached out, searching for her hand. He felt her flinch back. "Be careful!" she warned him. "My arm…"

"I know." It pained him to think of that wounded limb. Taking more care, he found her left hand and held it tight in his, then lay down with his head pillowed on his arm. "Sleep now. I will have to slip away in the early morning hours, but tomorrow you will ride on my pony with me."

"No," Betta shook her head, "I am quite strong enough to ride upon my own pony. I am glad that you are no longer ashamed of me, Fili, but you will be home soon and you will have more important things to worry about. We should not be seen together."

Fili frowned, but he did not object. He knew in his heart that Betta was right and it would not do for him to flaunt their relationship. Dwarves could talk as much as Men, and there would be rumors enough once Gloin said his piece back at the mountains, but Fili hated to think that no one but he and his brother would ever know all that she had done for them. If a Dwarf had done all that she had done for Thorin's nephews, he would have been held in high honor.

Fili closed his eyes and was soon fast asleep, but Betta lay awake a little longer, enjoying the feel of his hand in hers and his arm around her. She savored the moment, not knowing when would be their last night together. The pain in her phantom limb was forgotten; she forgot even that she was maimed at all.

* * *

**Hello, all you wonderful readers! and special welcome to those who were with me throughout QtF.**

**This story will be less adventure than its predecessor, and more of an indulgence on my part. Like many of you, I have been wondering what will happen to our friends once they returned to Thorin's Halls. I had many ideas back then that I simply could not abandon to the trash heap, and so they MUST be written DOWN!**

**Unfortunately, this story won't be updated as frequently as my last tale. I am much busier than I was this time last year, but I won't leave you long in suspense. I'm aiming for longer chapters less often in order to better fit my schedule. This also means that I won't be putting each post through the same rigorous editing process that I used before. If you notice any glaring mistakes, do PM me and I will immediately correct them.**

**Let me know what you think, REVIEW! REVIEW! Getting your comments and knowing that you are reading along definitely goes a long way toward getting me to finish another chapter ;)**

**Yours, always,**

**-Paint**


	2. Ch2: Decisions Made

**Middle-earth, and all who dwell within it, belong to Tolkien - Except my OCs, because he wouldn't want them anyway ;). Please review!**

* * *

Early in the morning, before the sun rose, Kili shook himself awake and moved quietly, carefully toward Betta's tent. He made sure that he was not seen by Thrin, who had been assigned the morning watch and was nodding nearby, leaning against the wheel of their wagon. As he crept across the no-man's-land between the two camps, he could hear the soft morning sounds of the horses and the chirping of birds. The air smelt of early spring and late winter in turns, depending on the direction of the wind.

Kili arrived at the tent and knelt down; he reached in to take hold of his brother's boot and shook him. He had little patience for Fili's mumbled curses, and he refused to let go of his brother's leg until Fili had woken fully and was crawling out of the tent, fully dressed and complaining that he had been pulled away from Betta's warm arms.

"I would have woken myself," Fili protested, but a wide yawn cut short his words, and left his face split by a sheepish grin. "Well, I would have slipped out without being seen, anyway," he said with a shrug, but Kili was not as indifferent to what their company saw.

"There will be trouble enough today when we ride beside her today," he said. "I do not want to have to explain to Gloin and all the rest why you are sneaking out of a woman's tent – any woman's tent, Dwarf of human – in the early morning hours. Think what rumors will fall from that!"

"The rumors would be false whatever they are," Fili said. "We spoke and we slept, that is all." He was annoyed that his brother was determined to give him a second rude awakening after the first, but he sighed. "You are right to be cautious, Kili, thank you, but I am tired. I wish to think only of breakfast and of the morning ride. Is it too much to ask for one day that I need not worry over what tomorrow will bring?"

"You may ask for it, but you will not get it. Not if I have anything to say about it."

But Fili waved him off and was already walking toward the line of trees east of their camp. Kili shook his head at him and then ducked down once more to look into the tent. Betta lay still and her eyes were closed, but he knew better than to think that she was asleep.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?" he asked, and his expression was stern.

Betta opened one eye to look at him, then she sat up with a groan, holding her maimed arm close to her chest as she twisted her shoulders to work the knots from her neck and back. "I have half the temptation of your brother," she said, "having only one hand to keep to myself, but keep it I did. Not that I need to say anything about it to _you_. I am a free woman and may do as I choose to do."

"I am not trying to shame you…"

"And I am not ashamed," she said, but her smile did not return. She was thoughtful and looked down at the pressed ground where Fili had lain last night. "I only wish that I knew what he has planned for the future. I did not think that he would speak to me until we reached Ered Luin, but then he says that he will stay the night. He risks being discovered. He used to be cautious, but now…"

Fili had returned from the trees and stood at a distance waiting for his brother to join him nearer to the Dwarf camp.

"No," Kili said, keeping his voice low, "he is as cautious as ever he was, but caution has never stopped my brother once he sets his mind to doing something. When we set out for the north half-supplied and without a clear path, it was because his willfulness outweighed his caution. I fear that the same will happen again. Fili will make up his mind, but to what end, I cannot see. Where will he lead us this time?"

"To adventure," Betta said, smiling sadly, but Kili's face was worried and he shook his head.

"No, to our uncle, and Thorin is not as easy to manage as orcs and trolls." He glanced at her once more and then left to rejoin his brother, but though Betta could not see Fili from inside her tent, she remembered Kili's anxious eyes and the morning was less bright to her for many hours after.

.

Fili and Kili entered the Dwarf camp together and pretended for Thrin's sake that they had both slept there all night. Neither brother needed to fake his yawning and tired eyes as they kindled the breakfast fire and took the lid off the pot to heat the cold and crusty remains of last night's stew.

Fili had planned to bring Betta her breakfast that morning, but Kili's words made him take care and he waited for Gloin and the other Dwarves to fill their bowls and move away. By then, there was only the over-cooked dregs left to be scraped from the bottom. It was just as well, he could see Tom was already up and walking toward Betta's tent with a plate of bread and cheese in his hand. There seemed to be something up in the Men's camp. They were packing their wagons more quickly this morning and almost as soon as Tom had delivered Betta's food, he began to take down the tent that he had lent her and carried it back to camp.

The pup-tent was stowed away, and Betta's pony brought from the pickets where the Men's horses were tied. The Dwarf camp was barely packed by the time Tom was helping Betta to mount her pony. For a moment, Fili was afraid that Tom meant to take her ahead with him into the Men's caravan, but at the last moment, the lad touched her hand and drew away, hurrying back to his own company. Betta was left to sit alone upon the confused beast for some time before the Dwarves were ready to set out.

The Men's company left first and Betta had to hold back her pony to keep it from following. The Dwarves grumbled at the tall folk's impatience, but they did not hurry, and there was a quarter of a mile between the two parties before Gloin motioned for his wagon to move. At first, Betta rode the usual distance ahead, leaving a dozen yards behind her before the Dwarves' wagon, even though it meant that she lost sight of the Men's horses whenever they turned a bend in the road. She waited, not knowing what Fili had planned, but after an hour, she grew impatient and looked back.

Fili and Kili rode together at the head of their company, but Gloin had been warned and was hanging back with the other Dwarves. He shot many frowning looks toward Fili's back, but most went unnoticed and the rest were ignored. Seeing Betta look back at him, Fili smiled and raised his reins to urge his pony on ahead and catch up with her, but before he could do so, Betta had pulled up her own reins and her pony stopped walking. With no other horses or wagons to hurry after, the animal was content to wait for its friends to come up from behind.

Kili grinned and Fili shrugged his shoulders; they kept their speed until they were alongside Betta, but there was no need for them to slow or for her to shake the reins. Her pony began to walk of its own accord and easily kept pace with the other two. The three animals were fast friends after all the adventures they had suffered together, and they had missed each other.

Fili could feel the weight of Gloin's eyes on his back, and he could hear the other Dwarves muttering in their own speech at the seeming impertinence of Betta's choice to ride with the brothers. They could not know that it had been Fili's choice to ride with her and that she had only anticipated his decision. To their eyes, she had forced her company on the heir of Thorin Oakenshield, and it was an embarrassment too terrible to endure.

But Fili _was_ Thorin's heir and nephew and he did not complain or reject the human of their company; there was nothing that the other, less-noble Dwarves could do. It was not their place to question Fili or Kili when their uncle would have words enough for them once they reached the Gates of Ered Luin.

Gloin's silence, too, was taken as consent. The old merchant was leader of their party, and he would have the final say when they made camp for the night.

"Good morning," Betta said, smiling at Fili. She knew that she had beaten him to their reconciliation and was not aware of the irritation that she had caused among the Dwarves behind.

"Good morning," Fili said, and he looked closely at her, measuring the color of her cheeks against the fading of her bruises. She was still too pale and thin after her ordeal in the northern lands, but the warm southern air would soon set her to rights, and he hoped that being within scent of the sea would raise her spirits as well. Her look was older than it had been before their long journey, but at the same time, her smile and her laugh was more free now that her quest of many years was ended.

"It _is_ a good morning," he decided, determined to ignore the grumbling voices behind him. "By nightfall we should be beside the river, and tonight or tomorrow will see us upon the other side. In less than three days, I'd put money on it, we will be within sight of the Gates again, and then…" his words faltered and he did not know what then. He looked to his brother.

"How is your arm today, Betta," Kili asked cheerfully.

She shrugged with one shoulder, a gesture that seemed to have replaced the distracted way that she used to use her right hand to pull at her hair. "The arm is weak and useless to me now," she said, "but it heals as well as expected, and I hardly feel the pain of it anymore."

That was a lie, Kili knew. He could see the pain crease the corners of her mouth when her pony skipped over the hard stones, but he knew better than to expect her to get over the amputation overnight. That she was 'as well as expected' was as well as any of them had a right to expect.

.

All morning, the three friends rode together and talked quietly amongst themselves, but as the day passed and the sky grew cloudy, even Betta and Kili began to feel the added weight of the eyes upon them. The other Dwarves were sullen, but even the company of Men who had ridden far ahead had noticed that the stray woman was back among the Dwarven-folk. They did not like it. They did not like the Dwarves.

There could be no free word spoken while the trio were watched on all sides. Fili talked mainly of the weather and the state of the road while Kili spoke of the sparse trees and low hills, wondering whether they might not catch some larger game here, an elk or wild boar that had woken early from its winter slumber. Betta said little, even when Kili asked her opinions on the hunt. She was silent and sad, and he remembered that she still carried her father's bow tied to her saddle though the weapon was useless without two hands to hold it.

Even less was said that afternoon, though the clouds departed and the sky was blue again. Fili had begun to think hard on the days ahead and Kili was glad to see his brother's pensive face looking often toward the mountains that were marching close upon their right.

The afternoon passed slowly and evening began to creep in. The sun sank toward the horizon, touching the highest peaks of the Ered Luin. The company of Dwarves had reached a place where the road drew up close to the banks of the wide river and Gloin called Fili back to ride beside him so that they might keep an eye out for a safe place to cross. That was not his only reason, however, and he neglected his task to keep his eyes on his cousin while Fili more often looked ahead to Betta than sidelong at the swift-flowing stream.

For some time, the two Dwarves rode in stony silence while the shadows grew long around them. After their argument the night before, neither wished to be the first to speak to the other, but Fili was young and his stubbornness was fresh from the forge; it had not been made brittle by the passage of long years. Eventually, Gloin sighed and urged his pony closer to Fili's. He said, "If you are determined to stay upon this course, lad, at least you must see the wisdom in keeping her secret. Thorin has all his hope pinned upon you and your brother. What would your mother say?"

Fili winced. He might have shrugged off Thorin's worries and insisted that Kili would still produce the heir that would carry on Durin's line. And Fili was convinced that he might still rule successfully as King of Durin's folk – even if Betta would never be acknowledged his queen – if Thorin would only put aside his determined distrust of Men and publicly declare his support for his nephew's choice of bride.

But what of Dis? What of the proud Dwarf-woman who lived now only in his memories? Dis would not have been glad to hear that her eldest son had pledged himself to one of the tall folk's women. She had been as traditional as Gloin, as proud as Thorin, and as quick to anger as any Dwarf-man whose family had once been threatened. Dis would not have accepted Betta as her daughter-in-law. Had his mother been alive, the best that Fili could have hoped for was that she would have given her gold for the journey before sending Betta away.

"My mother is dead," Fili said, feeling the weight of the word and the finality of saying it aloud. He remembered the dream that he had had beneath the mountains of Angmar, the sound of his future children laughing merrily as they played together, but that dream was gone now.

He looked ahead toward Betta, and his eyes traced the laughing profile of her face as she turned to answer back at some joke that Kili had made.

"I am not ashamed of her," Fili said quietly, and it was true. "She is brave and strong and deserves honor for all that she has suffered," he spoke with growing force to his words. "She has done more than enough for my brother and I, saved our lives more than once…" He sat up straight in his saddle and nodded, his mind made up. "Kili will marry and carry on Thorin's line. And besides, why should I feel more shame that my uncle who has chosen not to marry at all. He produced no heir of his own. Why should I be held to do more than that?"

"You are his sister's son, Fili. Your uncle deserves more respect from you," Gloin said, and was satisfied to see Fili's pride diminished a little, but only a little. "Well, if this woman has saved you and your brother from danger, then I am sure that Thorin will agree that some reward is due to her, but not the reward of his own nephew."

Fili frowned. Gloin looked at Betta and turned up his nose. "She may be brave, as you say, but she is not very fine to look at, is she…?"

Fili scowled and turned to speak sharply to his cousin, but Gloin had turned his eyes downwards and was looking into his cupped hand. Fili had never seen the images carved inside the metal locket that Gloin wore about his neck, images of his wife and son that Gloin had drawn with his own hand. There were many such lockets around the necks of many such Dwarves who loved their families. Thorin himself, though most did not know it, wore the image of his mother beneath his shirt. Nis had been killed at Erebor when the dragon attacked.

Fili sighed. Gloin had always thought his wife more beautiful than any woman of any race. There would be no arguing with him on that point. "What does it matter to me how Betta looks to you," he said, turning his own eyes toward his own woman with a greater appreciation for her hairless chin.

"I love her, Gloin, and if there were any way to change my feelings for her now, I would not wish to do it. I admit that I began to love her before she proved herself worthy of it, and at that time I might have given her up with little pain to myself. I might have been convinced to go back to my mountain and send her away to her sea-coast to be forgotten, but she _has_ proven herself. She _has_ saved my brother's life, and yet you ask me to abandon her?"

"I do," Gloin said, "for your sake and the sake of your family, but I see in your eyes that nothing that _I_ say will change your mind. I only hope that your uncle has stronger words than mine, but if he proves unfit for the challenge, then all that I can say is _take care_! Not even your stubborn pride and stern look will force our people to accept her. Keep your woman hidden. That is how it has always been done, and how it _will_ always be done. For her sake and your own, keep her secret or you will disgrace yourself and all your family, too!"

With that, Gloin shook the reins and urged his pony forward. Fili had no chance to reply and nothing that he would have said if he had been given the chance. He felt the sting of his cousin's angry words and turned his bleary eyes to the river. Not since he had been a child chastised by his father had he felt his heart in such turmoil, and he wished that he had still the certainty that he had felt last night. Could Gloin be right? Only a few Dwarves that Fili had heard of had ever married outside their own kind. All had come from common stock and all, besides Nan - who was a Blacklock and so did not hardly count - had come to a bad end. At the same time, all but Nan had kept their spouses a secret, living apart from both Men and Dwarves. Fili could do no such thing. With the quest to Erebor looming ahead of him, he could not abandon Thorin and Kili to the dragon. Thorin might disown his heir, but Fili could not give up his duty to his people for the fifty years or more that Betta's short life would last, nor could he abandon her.

He shook his head. No, he could not, and he could not ask her to hide herself away in a cave somewhere, living on the hope that he would perhaps find some time to visit her when his duties were not pressing. It was cruel enough that he asked her to wait for him while he went to reclaim Erebor, a journey of a more than a year at the best of times!

An hour passed, and Fili was no closer to calming his anxious thoughts but he had at least spotted a promising ford across the river before the failing light left them. Gloin agreed that it was the best place to cross and he guided their small party to the side of the road where they would make camp for the night.

The ford was farther north than the place where Fili, Kili and Betta had crossed on their eastward journey. They were many miles north, in fact, and Fili was glad for it. He was glad that he would not need to retrace his steps along the road as it curved beneath the evergreen copse where he imagined three corpses yet lay under their accursed branches.

No, the ford here was wider and the water swifter, though the riverbed was not much deeper than the other had been. The water was colder, however, and though Gloin was a dangerous Dwarf to barter with, he chose his risks wisely. They would not try the crossing now that night had fallen and the shadows of the trees lay thick about them.

"The river will be there in the morning, lads," he said, climbing down from his pony and ordering the Dwarves to unload the tents and make camp. "Tomorrow we'll cross it and in two days' time we will be back at Ered Luin, and I will be kissing my wife and son."

Fili dismounted and went to help Betta. He did not need to look back to know that the old dwarf was watching him. Instead, he smiled and held out his arm to help her down. She could never be the mother of his children, but he did not love her any less for that. He would have many babes to bounce upon his knee, his nieces and nephews, Kili's daughters and sons. Fili's choice was made.

"Take care," Kili said, as Betta prepared to dismount. Fili held the pony's bridle and reached for her arm, but she pushed his hand away.

"I must learn to do this someday myself," she said. "Why not today?"

Reluctantly, Fili stepped back but kept his hands ready to catch her. Betta held tight to the rim of the saddle with her left hand and, after a deep breath, she swung her right leg over and dropped to the ground. It was the first time that she had not had Tom hurrying back to help her down and lead her pony away, but she managed it with little injury and only a turned ankle – the same ankle that she had done far worse to when a grumpy snow-troll had knocked her off his roof.

Back on solid ground, she sighed and stopped to allow herself a rare moment of satisfaction before Fili touched her shoulder and she turned to smile at him.

"Next, I must learn to climb up on my own," she said.

"Yes, next," Fili agreed, "but not yet." She and his brother had been riding too far ahead to hear Gloin's announcement and so he delivered the news that their much-smaller party would be crossing the river come morning and turning their course west once more.

Kili laughed to think how close they were to home, but Betta's good humor faded and she turned her back to them to unfasten her bag form the pony's back – a difficult task with one hand. She cast a glance down the road, but the Men had not stopped at dusk and she could no longer see them in the growing dark. Their leader had been eager to leave the Dwarves behind as soon as he could, but Betta wished that she had been able to say a proper farewell to Tom and to thank him for the help he had given her. He had said that the company might eventually stop at the town beneath Thorin's Halls before returning to their own lands, but that was not certain and Betta guessed that she would never see her friend again.

Fili saw Betta's look and said nothing. He hid his smile, being happy that the Men were finally gone from them and that there would be no more trouble from the young man who had caught so much of Betta's eye in recent days.

They set about making camp. Kili was able to "discover" Gloin's spare tent among the baggage and the old dwarf grudgingly allowed them to fashion it alongside their own for Betta. The other Dwarves had begun complaining again once they realized that the human woman would not be riding ahead to rejoin her own kind. Thrin was openly angry at the intrusion. He did not dare complain to Fili and Kili themselves, but Gloin overheard his words and thanked his luck that at least Fili had waited a few days before acting as he did. It was a simple thing to excuse the brothers, saying that they had agreed to see the woman to the end of her journey – an end which was naturally back at the town, not upon the road in the middle of the wilderness. Of course, the heirs of Durin's own line could not shirk their duty or break their oath, even to one of the tall folk. Besides, Gloin said, she was injured and though she did not belong to their race, still the Men of the caravan were not her kin. An honorable Dwarf was not cruel, he told them, and it would be cruel indeed to abandon the woman to the kindness of _those_ Men.

Reluctantly, the Dwarves agreed. In truth, most of them had little grudge against Betta herself and once the Men of the caravan had moved off, they settled into a merry mood. That Fili and Kili respected the woman prevented them from evicting her from their camp; that Gloin had defended her – however angrily – shut them up entirely.

Indeed, the mood soon became quite cheerful. Any discomfort might be endured now that the Blue Mountains were near and they had all the comforts of home to look forward to. Fili and Kili went back and forth between their fellow Dwarves, talking freely with them, and there was even singing in the camp when Betta was not nearby. All eyes turned eagerly toward the shadows of the mountains where they rose up black against the starry sky, and Kili spoke eloquently on the subject of sleeping in one's own bed.

Betta smiled at his poetry but ate her meal in silence. These hills were not her home. She could not look forward to family, and the only part of their destination that was familiar to her was the town below and an inn where she had spent all of three days nearly two months ago.

Fili saw Betta's sadness but could think of nothing to say that would ease it for her. "Nan will look after you," he said, laying a gentle hand upon her shoulder.

Kili cleared his throat and nodded over his brother's shoulders. They had built a smaller fire for Betta away from the cook fire near the wagon where the other Dwarves sat talking together, but with two fires burning and eyes not yet heavy with sleep, they could still be seen. Fili took back his hand.

"At least they cannot blame me if I offered to change your bandages for you," he muttered.

He had not see her injured arm since the day before they had left the Lossoth village. As penance for his neglect of her, Fili refused to avert his eyes from the worst of the bruised and swollen stump of her arm. He swallowed the lump in his throat as he carefully wiped around the black stitches made from animal hair and cleaned away the pale blood that seeped through the seams of skin where it had been folded over the sawn-off bone. The faded bruises were yellow and green, and the texture of the rough bandage material had mottled her arm.

"Elm did a good job with this," Fili said, forcing his stomach to hold down the fresh meal he had just given it. "You will have hardly a scar once the wound has fully healed. A year only, I think…"

"Large or small, I do not see how any size scar could be a comfort to me," Betta said.

Fili agreed, but Kili moved to sit beside her and he looked at her arm with less concern that Fili thought proper.

"It will matter," Kili assured her. "A large scar would be more likely to give you pain, and it would limit the range of movement for your whole arm. See here, where the skin is folded? There is hardly a seam at all. Elm placed his stitches well." He nodded approvingly. "One of the old Dwarves down in the mines had caught his back upon a hook when he was young, but the skin was not laid flat before it was sewn down. He had a thick fold that would often catch the dust and sweat as he worked and it was always infected and giving him pain. Before he had reached his one hundredth year, he could no longer work and the healer was forced to reopen the wound and cut away a great deal of scarred flesh. It took away most of the pain, but he was not allowed back into the dust of the mines. He must spend his days sitting beside the fire, telling tales and watching over the young Dwarflings like an old woman…"

Betta stared at him in surprise, and he smiled sheepishly. "Not that there is anything wrong with the work of old women," he said, hoping that he had not offended her who would, with any luck, one day become one.

Betta smiled, but Fili was still staring at his brother. "Kili, where did you learn such a tale?" he asked, shaking his head though he was grateful for his brother's wise words that seemed to comfort their former guide when his own words did not.

Kili grinned and shook his finger at his brother. "I ask questions, Fili," he said. "I do not always pretend that I know everything, the way that _some_ Dwarves are wont to do."

Betta laughed at them both, and Fili finished tying the last bandage. "Well, I can only say again that Elm did a good job, and I am glad that he did," Fili said. He gently eased her arm into the seal-skin sleeve that protected the bandaging from the damp and then sat back to admire his work.

He moved to sit on the ground next to Betta and began feeding the few sticks they had left into their fire, wringing as much heat as he could from the embers. The moon had risen above the trees and the stars blinked down at them from among the tattered clouds. Kili went to Betta's saddle and retrieved her bow and quiver. He sat near to the fire, examining both bow and arrows for damage. They would be crossing the river tomorrow and she would not be using her bow anytime soon, so he took out a small jar of wax that he carried and spread a thin coating over the exposed wood to protect it from any unruly waves.

"Do not bother," Betta said. "That bow is no use to me now, unless it is for firewood."

But Kili kept on with his work as carefully as before. "It belonged to your father," he said, "and that is reason enough to take care of a thing."

She frowned but did not argue with him.

Fili did not argue, either. He knew that Betta could never shoot her bow again, but he also knew that Kili was the better Dwarf to speak to her, bowman to bow-woman, as it were.

He sighed and stretched out his legs, leaning back on his elbows. He wished that he was not surrounded by frowning Dwarves, that he might rest his head upon Betta's knee has he had done before when they were only three alone and surrounded by the wild lands. On that journey, though there had been hunger and cold and dangers aplenty, at least he had not been pressured to act the part of Thorin's Heir. The responsibility of his inheritance lay before him, waiting for him to return to his uncle's halls, and the weight of it seemed heavier on his shoulders now that he had had a taste of real freedom.

"What will you do now, Betta?" he asked suddenly, looking up at her.

She frowned and then she shrugged. "I suppose I will sit awhile and then I will sleep," she said, "what else?"

"No, not tonight; I mean, what will you do once we have reached the end of our journey? Nan's cabin lies outside the main roads, half a mile from town. Gilon has his own farm and a bit of a forge, too, though not so fine as those of the Dwarves. You will have a room there that is safer than any inn in town, and Kili and I will be able to visit you without attracting attention… but will you stay with Nan? You have not said for certain which way you will go. Can I trust that I will find you there again, after…?"

The word hung in the air longer than Fili liked. The only sound was the distant rumbling snores of the Dwarves, and the soft rustle of feathers as Kili fixed the fletching on Betta's arrows.

"Betta…"

"I will stay for awhile," she said, interrupting him. "Until my arm is healed and my strength returned, you will find me there. Longer than that, I cannot say. If I am to stay, then I must find work. I cannot always be relying on the charity of your friends."

"Work?" Fili said, sitting up. "What work would you do?"

Kili looked back and forth between them then lowered his eyes without comment. It was not yet needed for him to interfere in their fight. Besides, he wanted to hear this one.

"I will think of something," Betta said, not eager to see how offended Fili was by the idea of her earning her own bread. "I have known old women to sew with two hands so arthritic that they could hardly hold the needle. I might do as well as they with one good hand. I could take in mending and laundry, or the wife of the old innkeeper was kind to me and might be persuaded to hire me on as a servant. I will be slow at first, but my left arm will soon be twice as strong as any…"

"I will see no woman of mine serving beer in a Man's tavern!" Fili said angrily.

"Hush!" Kili hissed, looking toward the wagon. The brothers had the first watch and the other Dwarves had all by now gone to their rest, but there was no knowing whether some late-night listener would catch their words.

Fili swallowed his anger and clenched his fists. Betta shook her head. "But Fili, I am no woman of yours, not yet," she said quietly, "and perhaps not ever. I must make my living somehow, and I have nothing to trade but myself and my labor."

"Then trade your labor to Nan for your room and board. What else do you need?"

"What else do I need?" Betta said, growing angry herself. "You said once that you did not wish for me to live as your mistress, as your kept woman. Have you changed your mind since rejoining your kin that you now wish me to be reliant on you for all things? Or, do you think that, because I love you, I no longer have any use for my freedom and it must be given up?"

"Hush, now, both of you!" Kili whispered sharply. "Neither of you should be speaking this way. Not here! Anyway, there is no need for this argument. If Fili has forgotten, then I will remind him. Go get my sack over there. Show Betta her wedding present and then both of you may be satisfied, though I cannot think what will happen if Gloin should see what we carry."

Fili realized what his brother referred to, and he, too, looked toward the wagon. Not even their place as Thorin's heirs would save them if Gloin realized that the brothers were secreting gold through his camp. Fili was quiet as he retrieved the sack from Kili's things and set it before Betta, opening it to show her the small lumps of brassy stone.

"This is not…"

"It is," he assured her. "Do you doubt the word of a Dwarf?"

"No," she shook her head. "No, I do not." And she did not. It was not Fili or Kili's word that she doubted but her own eyes. The raw gold was not fair, not finely wrought into cups and crowns or even pressed into coin, but she recognized the metal and guessed that its value was great even in its natural form.

"Where did you get this?" she asked. "You said that you found no treasure."

"I will not speak of that here," Kili said, "but it was freely found. It is mine and I have decided to give it to you. And to Fili, of course, and if that will not stop you two arguing, then I might take it back as payment for all the trouble you have given me. It is a wedding gift, after all, and if there is no wedding, then there is no need for a gift."

Betta frowned and her hand felt suddenly shaky. "Whether or not there is a need remains to be seen," she said. "But I cannot take this. You have said over and over that you must have treasure to prove to your uncle that you are worth taking on his quest. Here, you have gold. You must give it to him, not to me."

"Ah, well…" Kili shifted anxiously in his seat. He glanced at his brother.

Fili, too, had often considered that uncomfortable question and all the lies that he must tell if he did indeed give the gold to Betta – Thorin would certainly ask what they had found in the northern hills. And yet, they might still give their uncle the much smaller treasure that they had found in the lost Naug-dwarf's chest. There were coins and raw gems there. And it was not as if Thorin would miss this small sack once he had liberated the treasury of Erebor from the tyranny of the dragon.

Betta saw the brothers' uncertainty. "It does not matter," she said. "This is a wonderful gift, Kili, but I cannot accept it. I can make no use of raw gold. It is not food or a room to live in. I can only trade it away to some other Dwarf in the hopes that he will pay me a fair price in real money." She shook her head and pushed the sack away. "No, I must work for myself. I am too proud to live on charity."

"It is not charity," Kili insisted, "but a gift from a friend. Of course we will find some way to turn it into coin or trade it for something that you can use. You need not worry over that…"

"And you need not work," Fili said.

"Alright," she said, too tired to argue, "then I will not _need_ to work, but I will _choose_ to work. I must keep my arm strong and my mind busy." She sighed and looked back at the gold. "At least, with this gift, it would be work of my own choosing…"

"Then I must be content with your choice," Fili said, smiling – he had not yet given up on convincing her otherwise. "Work if you must, but not too hard. You need rest and to heal, for there will be enough to do once I return from… from my next journey. We will have a life to build then, and that is no small labor." He took her hand in his.

"When you return…" Betta echoed. "_If_ you return…" Her fingers tightened around his hand, and she wished that she could hold him there and not let go. "And what do _you_ mean to do, Fili, once we return to your home? You may have many weeks or even months before your uncle leaves his Hall."

Fili looked away. "I do not think that it will be as long as that," he said. "We were long gone on our journey, and it is March already. I would not be surprised if he planned to leave before the month was out. He will not put it off later than the spring, if I know my uncle at all." He thought back to his conversation with Gloin and wished that he knew what messages Thorin had sent out to his kin. He thought also on what Thorin had said long ago regarding Tharkun, the Wizard, but that was less clear.

Fili looked across the fire at his brother, his little brother. Kili was tying the last feather to the last of Betta's arrows, focused on his task but still alert and listening to what was being said. They were going to face a dragon, Fili reminded himself. What if he did not return? Kili had promised to take care of Betta, but what if Kili did not return either?

"I would like for you to meet our uncle," Fili decided.

Two pairs of eyes turned to stare at him, but Kili's were the widest. "You cannot bring her into the mountain," he said.

"I can," Fili said. "I am Thorin's heir and as such it is my right to arrange for an audience between Thorin and delegations from the surrounding villages of Men. I can bring her inside, and what is more, I am determined to do it. I will not be shamed into silence. If Betta is to live in this land alone, then I will not have her be a stranger to all our people."

"Thorin will not like it."

"No, he will not," Fili agreed. "But I am not wholly a fool, Kili. When we are within sight of the town, you and I will turn aside and leave Betta with Nan. From there, we will continue on to the mountain where Thorin is most certainly expecting us." He smiled as his plan fell into place. "Yes. We will test the waters there, and when we are certain that our uncle is in a good mood and distracted by his quest, we will bring Betta in by some secret back door to a private room where…"

"No."

He looked at Betta in surprise. "What, no? You do not wish to meet Thorin?"

"Oh, I will meet him, and gladly. I have many things that I would say to your uncle, but I refuse to be slipped in by the back way. Once again, Fili, you treat me as if you are ashamed of me, as if I were your whore." Fili pulled away from her as if he had been slapped, but Betta had raised herself among Men harder than he, and she had heard many worse things said of her than that. "If you are not ashamed of me, then introduce me face to face and without deception, or do not introduce me at all. I have looked into the eyes of orcs and trolls and felt the teeth of Elm's bone-saw. I am not afraid of any Dwarf King."

Fili frowned and wished more than ever that Betta had been born a Dwarf-woman. If she had, not even proud Dis could have objected to calling her kin.

"This is your final word?" he asked. "You will not come secretly into the mountain? It would be safer for…"

"I will not. I will walk through the front gate or I will not enter at all."

Fili sighed. "Well, there it is, Kili," he said. "We must bring Betta in by the Gates. At least there is now no reason for delay. She will come with us into the mountain and when Thorin asks to see us, he must see her as well."

"And how will you explain her to the guards who will try to stop her?" Kili asked.

Fili shrugged. "I know the rules. I know them better than you, dear brother. Betta is a delegation of one. She comes from the southern coasts and has shared in our adventures, saving both our lives and losing her hand to a quest that was as much ours as it was her own. If Thorin had not refused us a place in his company, we would not have gone north."

Kili opened his mouth to protest, but he had no words to say and closed it again. "I suppose that is true," he conceded. "But even you, Fili, must know that Thorin does not trust the tall folk. You overestimate his capacity for patience where the other races are concerned."

Fili sighed. "At least she will be there as witness to our story. Without treasure, Thorin will think that we hid in the trees of Emyn Uial until it was time to come home. What better proof do we need of our adventures than the word of the woman who witnessed it all?"

"Gold would be better," Betta said. "More useful than I am."

Fili looked at her and saw her unease. "If you do not wish to go, I will not force you to do it," he said, softening his words and putting his hand over hers. "But we may have no other chance for you to meet our uncle, and I would have him know you. I would have every Dwarf in the mountain know you, but I would be content with only one."

Betta held his hand and met his eyes. "If you are determined, then I am determined," she said. "I am not ashamed."

Fili smiled and Kili sighed. He shook his head, but in his heart he was not surprised. "You two are made for each other," he said, "and I am sure we will all suffer for it."

Not long after, Kili went to the wagon and woke the next Dwarf for his turn at watch. Betta went to her bed knowing that in the morning they would cross the river and be that much closer to Ered Luin. As Fili had done, she thought of the thieves and the dead kitchen boy that they had discovered near the southern road. On this leg of their journey, the final few miles, the danger was not what would catch them upon the road but what was waiting for them at the end of it.

When she closed her eyes that night, Betta saw the shadowy figure of the great Thorin Oakenshield, the rumor that she had only heard second-hand from his nephews. He sat alone in his great halls, brooding on dragons and lost treasure, awaiting the return of his nephews from the wild lands and planning his revenge…

.

The land that lay about the feet of Ered Luin was still wrapped in the chill of winter's morning, but Balin felt the sweat beading under his heavy coat. Spring was on the way and the sun was bright in the pale, blue sky. His pony stumbled as it dragged its hooves up the uneven, snow-covered road to the Gates of Thorin's Halls. Balin pitied the poor beast that had been forced to carry him so far and so fast in the past few weeks, but his messages had all been delivered and in a few days, Thorin's kin – those who were not already within the Blue Mountains – would begin to arrive.

Balin reached the top of the sloping road, looking forward to a warm meal and a warm bed to sleep in, but the Gates were shut.

"What is this?" he said, speaking aloud in his surprise.

A Dwarf looked out from behind the wall. "Master Balin!" he said, quickly moving to unlock the gate. "I apologize. It has been so long since the Gates were closed at night that I sometimes forget to open them again in the morning." The Dwarf, Farn, if Balin remembered right, pulled back the gates and latched them to the stone walls.

"Indeed," Balin agreed, eyeing the deep divots in the snow where the Gates had been passed back and forth forming two mirrored arcs on either side of the road. "It has been thirty years! And before that… well, not since we first came to these hills and had yet to make friends with the town folk. What has gone wrong here? I heard no rumor of danger."

Farn shook his head. "No, no danger that I know of. Thorin ordered that the Gates be closed at nightfall and opened again at morning. That is all that I know, and it is my job, after all…"

Balin laughed. He could see what Farn thought of his "job". The Keeper of the Gates was a symbolic position at best, at least it had been. "Well, I will have a word with Thorin about it," he said as he rode past the Dwarf. "But we will keep word of your tardiness this morning to ourselves."

"I would appreciate it, Master Balin. Thank you!" Farn smiled and bowed many times as Balin rode up the hill to the main door, but Balin's own good mood was much lessened by this new information. Why would Thorin want the Gates closed? If there was no trouble in the town, what could be the reason? And, if there was no reason, locked Gates would send a very bad message to the tall folk down below.

When the Dwarves had first returned to Ered Luin, after the grievous victory of Azanulbizar, they had built their Gates and kept them locked, but the people of the town were friendly enough and eager to have the extra money that Dwarf traders brought in. The Gates were left open for nearly an hundred years after that, apart from the winter of 2911, when the bitter cold caused much hunger in the valley and many wolves roamed the hills. Thorin had been a young King at that time, but he had allowed the tall folk to build huts in the wide valley beneath the doors of his Halls and at night, those who were afraid might take shelter behind the walls and strong iron of the Gates…

But there was no bitter winter now, and the agreement between the mountain and the town was unbroken.

Balin shook his head, setting aside his thoughts until he had more information. He dismounted and led his tired pony to the small, stone-walled stable that was set just back from the main doors, sheltered behind many large stones. The lad who handled the horses ran out and took the reins from him with many words of greeting. Balin smiled and gave the lad a small toy that he'd brought from his uncle in Dunland, a small, carved dog with moving legs.

"Gar will be surprised to see how long your beard has grown, lad," Balin said, mussing the young Dwarf's hair.

"I will have your bags brought inside," the lad said, pocketing the toy with a grin.

Balin looked up at the sun. It was fully risen above the eastern line of hills, but the morning was still young. "I will bring them myself," he said. "I will have time to wait for Thorin. He must be hardly out of his bed…"

"I would be surprised to hear it, sir," the lad said, leading Balin's pony into the stable. "I have not seen him, but they say that Master Thorin hardly leaves his Great Hall these days. He is lost in maps and ancient scrolls, sending messengers in all directions. More than once, they have found him asleep at his table, and only Dwalin has been able to convince him to go to his rest."

"Surely Fili is looking after his uncle better than that."

The young Dwarf shook his head. "I cannot say. I have not seen Fili or Kili for many weeks. They rode east and no one seems to know where they've gone." With that, the young Dwarf went into the stalls to brush down Balin's pony.

Balin frowned as he looked up at the tall, narrow doors that led into the Dwarf-home. Fili and Kili were missing. Thorin was overworked and anxious, locking gates and neglecting his rest. Could it be that Thorin was more like his father and grandfather than any of them had been willing to believe? At least there was no sign that he had slipped off in the intervening months and gone on his quest alone.

These mountains may not be Erebor, but they were home… for now, and Balin had hoped that this homecoming would be a peaceful one, allowing him a few days' rest before the other Dwarves arrived and they began laying plans for the eastward journey. Now, he knew, that would not be the case. He must see to Thorin, immediately, and he must learn where were the missing Durin brothers. He could only hope that no danger had found them.

* * *

**Coming soon, what you've all been waiting for... THORIN!**

**Also, for those who have commented: in the previous chapter, Betta was reluctant to speak up not because she is weak but because she is more aware than either of the brothers that they are royalty and she is not. They are Dwarves and she is not. It is more of a class situation than a gender thing, though both do come into play.**

**Please Review.**

**-Paint**


	3. Ch3: Trouble in the Halls of Ered Luin

Knowing the trouble that he must face, Balin was tempted to go first to his own rooms and rest his tired bones for an hour or two before he looked after Thorin, but, in the end, he knew that he could not rest until he had seen with his own eyes the state that his cousin was in.

There were few Dwarves at large among the passages of the Dwarfhome. Most had risen with the sun and were already at work down in the mines liberating the few useful ores that the Blue Mountains provided. The rest were with their own families in their own rooms. The few dwarves that Balin saw in the halls all told him the same thing, that Thorin Oakenshield would undoubtedly be found in the Great Hall, the long room where Thror's old, wooden chair sat gathering dust and where his grandson met with those traders and leaders of Men who came to his halls on official business.

But the Great Hall was empty. Thorin's honor guard was not at the door and there was no fire in the grate. The long table had been pushed to one side but the far end was laid thick with sheets of parchment, old maps and tall books of lore. Along one side, low mounds of many candle stubs were laid out like a mini mountain range, but the wicks were drowned and the wax was cold.

Not yet defeated, Balin pushed through to the narrow passage that let out behind the raised throne and walked down to the private library of the Durin line. Before the rickety door to that small room sat the single honor guard who was duty-bound to follow the head of the Durin household wherever, and whenever he went within the Dwarfhome of Ered Luin. Balin expected to find an old Dwarf – Fror, perhaps, or Tharn – it was usually some friend or favorite who was given the not very difficult task; it was a surprise to find Dwalin, his own brother, dozing beside the door and looking very out of place folded nearly in half to perch upon a low stool.

Smiling to himself, Balin was careful not to wake his brother as he opened the door and stepped into the library. He had seen the dark circles beneath Dwalin's eyes and guessed that his not-so-little brother had had his hands full minding their cousin's shifting moods in the weeks since Balin had left.

The private library of the Durin family was small and cramped, the air filled with smoke and the corners thick with dust and cobwebs. Until recently, the room had seen little use. There was housed all that remained of the lore of Erebor. Along the walls were stacked rolled up maps and scrolls, books of lore painstakingly rewritten from the memories of the dwarves who had survived the destruction of the mountain. Balin had known them all, the refugees of The Lonely Mountain, the old and the dead. They had been friends of his father, Fundin, and many stories of their lives lived on in his head.

The scrolls, Balin knew also, for he had read them all and knew intimately the scent of burning that still lingered in the fibers of the old parchment. How many dwarves had been at work that day, toiling over their books? How many had fled and died? How many had taken up the work that lay before them and run, clutching pages in their sweating hands while others reached for swords? Soldiers and scholars alike had burned and been devoured that day, and more died from the damp and hunger that came upon the refugees as they wandered in the wilderness.

Balin trailed his fingers over one of the dusty shelves and remembered many faces long forgotten. Ered LUin was safe and peaceful in the early morning hours, but Thorin meant to leave this place, to go back into the wilderlands, to return and face the dragon once more…

Balin sighed and looked up again. A small fire burned in the chimney to one side, and a wide, square table had been set nearby. Thorin lay before the fire, his head resting upon one arm while the candle at his elbow guttered in the breeze from the vents cut into the stone overhead. The wind had picked up outside, but within the mountain, all was warm and quiet. The light from the fire reflected in the sweat upon Thorin's fevered brow.

Balin frowned and was about to turn away, but Thorin was not asleep. He heard the scuff of boots upon the stone floor and looked up. For a moment, his face was blank and he looked at Balin as if he were a stranger.

"How quickly you forget me, cousin," Balin said softly. He smiled, but there was no eager twinkle in his eye, no joy at this reunion.

Thorin blinked at him a moment longer, clearing the sleep from his eyes. his cheeks were pale and drawn; the dark circles sunk under his eyes were even deeper and darker than those that painted Dwalin's face, but the shadow passed quickly and Thorin stood up. The smile that spread across his face at the sight of his old friend wiped away all sign of weariness and erased many lines of care.

"Balin! Cousin!" He hurried around the table and embraced his friend. "Forget you? No! Not though ten ages of the world were to pass before I saw you again, but we have much work to do and many plans to lay. The days grow long again…" He drew Balin back toward the table that was laid – if possible – twice as thick with pages as the long table in the Great Hall. There were more bound books here, stacked high and marked with ribbons in many places.

"Not so very long," Balin said, searching his cousin's haggard face. Dwarves were proud of their beards, but Thorin's was unkempt and untrimmed. By the smell, Balin guessed that he had not bathed for many days. "Not long enough that you could find a few hours for sleep? Thorin, when was the last time you lay in your own bed?"

"Already, you begin to scold me, my friend," Thorin laughed, "but there will be time for that later. These days, I cannot sleep. I must work while I wait on that dratted Tharkun! I had thought that he would have been here by now, been here many weeks ago, but Wizards will come and go as they please." He shook his head and pulled up a chair nearer to the fire for Balin who sat down gratefully. Thorin himself sat at the table again but he turned and leaned eagerly toward his cousin.

"Tell me now, what did you learn of the eastern lands? It is not easy to get reliable information out here regarding the lay of the wilderlands and the straight beyond Hithaeglir. As to the paths through the Greenwood…" He shook his head.

"Have you planned our road so far?" Balin said, looking down at the maps upon the table. "It is long since our family passed that way." Not since they fled west after the destruction of the dragon, he _did not_ choose to add, but Thorin's face was dark with the memory of dwarves lost, of his own mother who had died.

"Well," Thorin said finally. He turned back to his table and pushed aside one map while pulling forward another. "I have considered many roads that we might follow. Once the council has assembled, then we must decide which is ours to take and when…"

Balin frowned, but he knew that there was no getting Thorin's mind off of his quest, and no way to get him off to bed either, not yet. "I know more of the lands of our kin west of Hithaeglir than I do of the eastern lands," he said. "But there is some good news that I bring. I have convinced Gloin to come, at least to the council. Indeed, I am surprised that he is not already here."

"Gimli arrived many days ago," Thorin said. "It seems that our cousin has found some new profit up north that tempted him out of his way, but he will come. It is just as well. We will need ready money on the journey, as well as food and weapons, if we are to travel so far and in secret. Gloin is the only dwarf that I know whose purse is always full, and a dwarf like that is useful on any quest."

"If you can get him to open that purse, of course," Balin muttered. He had grown up alongside Gloin and Oin and held a very skeptical view of the work of merchant dwarves.

Thorin knew what he meant, and his face was grim. He leaned forward, resting his palms flat on the table with the maps between them. "Yes, your cousin is tight with his money, but better that I will be beholden to him than to one who is not my kin." He leaned back with a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "My father used to say that a King without a treasury of his own must be prepared to hold out his hands to merchants and miners alike. He must always be begging for his keep."

Balin did not like the sound of that, but before he could speak up, Thorin rose to his feet and struck the table with a thunderous blow. "Not for long!" he cried. "Not for long, and not forever!"

His voice was deep and raw from sleepless nights but the sound of his words echoed throughout the room and out into the hall.

"So," Balin said, once the echoes had died away and all that was left was the soft crackling of the burning wood upon the hearth. "So, it is a quest for gold that we have undertaken."

Thorin winced and turned toward his friend. He saw the deep lines of sorrow carved upon his cousin's weary face. He laid a hand on Balin's shoulder. "Not for gold only," he said gently. "Not only for gold but for our families also, for very Dwarf that has ever desired to once more look upon the stone halls of our forefathers. The dragon, Smaug, stole our home from us, but we will have vengeance. We will have our home back again. The beast has lain there far too long!"

Thorin's words kindled the anger in Balins's breast, but he smothered the growing flame and said, "There are many young dwarves here who would gladly call Ered Luin their home… if only you would let them. Fili and Kili have known no other mountains but these."

"Yes, my nephews," Thorin agreed and stood up straighter. His voice hardened with resolve. "They deserve better than these unfinished halls and uneven floors under their feet. You are right and I must think of them, also, and what will be their inheritance once their uncle has passed on to old age and un-use."

"You dismiss the aged too quickly, _old_ friend," Balin said.

Thorin smiled and sat down again. "Well, I have more news for you, Balin, that you will be glad to hear. Your messages have reached farther than you have guessed and I have had answers already. Dori and Ori have come up from the south; they arrived three days ago, and Nori will be here tomorrow. I expect, with more of their folk. Oin is still here, somewhere, probably with Fris and Gimli awaiting Gloin's arrival. Your brother, Dwalin, you saw outside, I dare say…" He winked and shook a finger at Balin. "Do not think that I do not know you left orders for him to look after me, but your brother is a terrible nursemaid and causes more hurts than he cures."

"Dwalin's skill is in fighting," Balin agreed. "His bedside manner leaves much to be desired."

"I have manners enough in bed," Dwalin said, pushing his wide shoulders into the room. Their loud voices had woken him and he was too eager to wait to greet his brother again. "But she who'd confirm it is not here to speak for me."

"Frei is well, then?" Balin asked, embracing his brother.

"Aye, and missing her husband who has been kept up nights looking after this bothersome Oakenshield," he aimed a sharp look at Thorin, but not as sharp as it might have been. "I'll leave our cousin to you, brother. I must have a proper rest if I am to get anything done today."

After a few more words, Dwalin left them. Balin watched his brother go, stumbling and wiping sleep from his eyes, and he sighed. He was not surprised that Dwalin had failed to keep their royal cousin in line. Though Balin had grown up with Thrain's son, Dwalin had known little of their cousin prior to the Battle of Azanulbizar when Thorin's brave deeds upon the field had won him renown and his proud title – as well as the eternal admiration of a very young Dwalin.

Balin had often thought that his little brother looked up to their cousin with a devotion that was more than a little too trusting and, perhaps, a little too forgiving.

No, Balin knew that he would have to be the reasonable one here, as usual, calming Thorin's eagerness and counseling caution in his ear. He turned back to Thorin who was once again ticking off names upon his fingers.

"Bombur and Bifur sent word from Bree that they will come, and they say that Bofur will join them upon the road… They will bring many dwarves with them, I know. Who is missing? Ah, yes. Gloin will take the northern road, but I expect him in the next few days. Gimli says that he had only one wagon with him, but there are Dwarves in the northern hills, and I have no doubt that he will find them and bring them around to our cause.

"That accounts for nearly all that I sent for by name, and a few others who answered, but I have high hopes that still more will come… I have been travelling while you were away, cousin." Thorin smiled. "Oh, not so far as you have gone, but I have been south to the harbors and east as far as the Shirefolk's farms, wandering in disguise. Something is afoot, but I cannot put my fingers on it. I feel as if the whole land is watching, waiting for us to set out."

He frowned and shook his head. "If only I could be more certain of the road," he muttered. "We must have wagons if more are to come, but if we have wagons it will be that much harder to travel in secret…"

Balin turned his face away. He did not share Thorin's hope of raising an army to their cause. There were few Dwarves these days who could be roused from their work, and those were more interested in earning their gold than winning it at such a high cost. Most were content to curse the dragon from afar. Thorin may have walked the hills beneath Ered Luin in recent days, but Balin had ridden over a hundred leagues over many weeks, and he knew that no other of their long-sundered kin would join them.

He looked up suddenly and looked around. "Where _are_ Fili and Kili?" he asked. "Have they gone to town so early this morning? Fili always seems to know when I am about, and I was surprised that he did not meet me at the Gates." Thinking of the Gates, Balin was about to ask why they had been ordered locked, but what Thorin said next drove the thought right out of his head.

"My nephews are off on some sort of _adventure_," Thorin said with a wink. He walked to one of the many shelves, took down another book and walked back to the table. "They met some human woman in town with an old map of Evendim, and she offered to pay them a few coins to take her around those hills. I almost kept them here, but they have been so much trouble lately. It has been much quieter in the mountains since they have been gone, and I have gotten a great deal of work done without Fili's frowns following me about the place and Kili getting into trouble every day…"

"To Evendim? But that is little more than a week's ride from here. When did they leave? And when will they return? Surely you want them here now that the others have begun to arrive?" Balin remembered the day that he had left and his conversation with Fili. He knew that the young Dwarf was determined to go to Erebor. Surely Fili would not have gone off, knowing that the quest was so near.

"It was not long ago," Thorin said, waving the questions away. "I have been busy with my own travel, but they have not been gone more than a few weeks or a month. Indeed, they left the same week that you left us, old friend, and you have not been gone long."

Balin stared at Thorin and wondered whether this madness were not more than a few sleepless nights. "Thorin! I have been gone _two months_!" he said sharply. "How long have you been locked up in this room that you do not realize your own nephews have been gone for _two months_!? Where are they? Why have they not sent word?"

Thorin looked up and almost smiled, thinking that his cousin was playing a joke on him. "It cannot have been so long as that," he said slowly.

"Long enough that I journeyed south as far as the mouth of the Isen. Long enough that I rode east and north into Dunland and stopped at every Dwarf-settlement along the way searching for the names on your list. I say that it has been two months, and two months it has been! Where are your nephews, Thorin?"

Thorin hesitated. Balin's concern was catching, but still, he shook his head. "They have been gone as long and longer when they rode the caravans with Dwalin and Gloin," he said. "Fili is a clever lad. He will look after his little brother."

Balin opened his mouth to protest, but Thorin held up a hand to silence him. "I do not doubt that they have indeed returned and slipped in while I was away. They have decided to play a trick on their old uncle and are hiding away somewhere, determined to worry me. Or, more likely, they failed to bring home the treasure that they promised and are locked up somewhere working out some new tactic against me. Fili wishes to go to Erebor, you know, and Kili will always follow his brother."

"I know what Fili wishes. I spoke to him before I left, but Thorin, how are you not worried? Even in Evendim, anything can happen. They might be trapped in a ravine or been eaten by bears! Why did Dwalin not speak up?"

"Your brother has been busy, too busy to nursemaid two wayward dwarves. If you are truly worried, we will start up a search, but I am sure that Fili and Kili are around here somewhere, either in the mountain or down in town, hanging about the alehouses. Come now, we shall summon old Fror. If any dwarf can find the lads, it will be him."

Thorin left his maps and walked to the door. "You will see, Balin. Fili would not let his brother get into any real trouble."

Balin wished that he could believe it. He had hoped that speaking with Thorin would quiet the fears in his heart, but instead he found only a newer and greater fear. Where were the brothers? How had they been gone for so long? Was Thorin now so deep in his thoughts of Erebor that he could forget his own nephews?

It was a dark business that he had walked into, Balin thought, as he followed along behind Thorin, and Dwalin would soon regret that he had allowed it all to go on for so long.

"Wait and see, Balin," Thorin said as they stepped out into the passage and left the smoky, musty library behind. "We will have this all sorted out in no time at all. Someone has played a poor prank on his uncle, and I expect to find Kili at the bottom of it."

.

Of course, Kili was not found, not at the bottom nor the top of anything. All day, the dwarves of Ered Luin searched the mountain halls. Not a corridor was left unexplored, not a closet door unopened. Even down into the mines, the messengers were sent to ask every dwarf-man, -woman and -child when was the last time they had seen either of Thorin's nephews.

Fili and Kili, even in their less adventurous days, had a way of getting into every crack and corner to cause trouble. Every old dwarf could tell of a time when one or both of the lads had gotten too far underfoot, but this time there were no tales to tell. No one had had seen Fili or Kili in more than two months. The last dwarf to see them was Fror who had sent them off with packs and ponies and Thorin's permission along with the human woman. The news from town was the same from the few Men who the Dwarves bothered to ask: no sign of either brother in two months.

Balin watched Thorin throughout the search and what he saw worried him more than the missing brothers. While others were looking for Fili and Kili, Thorin stuck to his maps, waving away all concern. It was not until the last of the searchers returned and his nephews were declared well and truly missing that Thorin's anger burst forth in a loud curse that echoed through the halls of Ered Luin.

Deep down, Balin suspected that Thorin was more angry with himself that he had allowed the brothers to go wandering without an escort, and that he had forgotten them for so long, but still, he would do nothing. Thorin admitted, in private, and to Balin only, that he had been too eager to get his nephews out of his hair, but it bothered him less that they were missing and more that they had chosen _this time_ to go missing when they knew that their uncle would need all his time and attention focused on the quest.

"They are here, somewhere," he continued to say, even as the day turned to dark outside and the lamps were lit within the Dwarfhome. "Or, at most, they are out in the hills waiting for someone to look for them."

"Then you must _look_, Thorin!" Balin insisted. "The others are arriving. Fili, at least, should be here for your first council…"

"Fili _will_ be here," Thorin said. "He will not miss this quest, even if he thinks that he will not be on it." Balin's gaze weighed heavily on his back, and he sighed. "Well, we cannot search the hills tonight; the moon is nearly gone. I will send riders out tomorrow, to the ferry and across the river toward Evendim. Will that satisfy you, cousin?"

"I suppose that it must," Balin said unhappily. He knew that no more would be done that day. Nori had arrived in the early evening and had walked into the bustle of the haphazard search. His luggage had been mislaid in the shuffle and much time had been lost getting that mess sorted out. Balin could only guess at the trouble he would be put to once Gloin arrived with his merchants and their goods. For now, Thorin was locked in council with his books of lore and it was left to Balin to greet their guests and make arrangements for their stay.

Thorin still expected a great multitude of guests, but their official council waited only upon the arrival of Gloin and his (not-many) wagons. Tomorrow, perhaps, but no later than the next day – wizard or no, Gloin or no – the real planning would begin for the reclaiming of Erebor. Balin was not looking forward to that first gathering when Thorin must finally be forced to count the number of dwarves who had heeded his call. He will have no choice but to accept that there would be no army and no war. No legions were rising to answer the call of a poor, exiled King.


	4. Ch4: An Audience With The King

**Middle-earth, and all who dwell within it, belongs to Tolkien. I am grateful to him for growing this beautiful garden in which our imaginations can play. Please review!**

* * *

Fili sat upon his pony at the edge of a low rise. He looked down into the valley spread out below him, a shallow bowl with his home set on the far rim. Below it, the little town lay like a cluster of toy houses scattered by a child upon a patchwork quilt of farmers' fields, dirt brown or speckled white. The river swept far south of the road but from this high place, Fili could just make out the silver thread sparkling in the distance. The mid-day sun warmed his back and cast a long shadow before him but farther west heavy clouds hung over the Blue Mountains and moved slowly southwards upon a swift wind.

Ered Luin. Even from a distance, his sharp eyes made out the curve of the wall before the doors to his uncle's kingdom in exile, Fili's home almost as far back as he could remember.

Betta rode up beside him, her pony stopped just far enough back that he had to turn his head to see her. Her face was pale and anxious under the shadow of her hood. He could measure the length of her long illness in the sagging of her shoulders and the thinness of her cheeks, but she looked past him, past the fields and small town to the mountains beyond.

"You do not smile," she said. "Are you not glad to see your home again?"

In his heart, Fili admitted that he was not as glad as he ought to have been, but only to Betta would he allow his face to betray his true feelings. "It _is_ my home," he said, willing himself to be grateful at least for the good food and rest that he would find there. "It is my home, but I have been gone so long that it all looks new to me." He smiled at her.

"Your uncle will be glad to see you after so many weeks away," she said.

Fili nodded, but he was not sure. Certainly, Thorin would be glad that his nephews were not dead and buried under the northern snow, but Fili could not say whether it would be enough to overshadow his anger when he learned that they had travelled an hundred leagues farther than he had given them permission to go and been gone weeks longer than they said it would take. He could not say which scene he hoped to find when he entered the mountains: a worried uncle pulling out his beard over his missing nephews, or King Oakenshield presiding over a council of maps and loyal dwarves, planning the reclamation of a kingdom in spite of their absence.

Fili urged his pony around and put his back to the valley. He searched Betta's face, looking beneath the illness, the exhaustion and anxiety; he knew that she was glad to have the end of their road in sight. Hers had been a longer journey than theirs, and she had lost more than either of them.

"Are you still determined to meet Thorin?" he asked. "No one would think any less of you if you turned aside. We are near the road to Nan's cabin…"

"As little as your folk already think of me, they could think no less," she said angrily, but when she looked at Fili, her eyes softened, and she smiled. "If you are determined, then I am determined," she said, laughing.

Still, he hesitated and reached across the space between them to touch her hand. "You have nothing to prove to me," he told her.

"Not to you," she agreed and squeezed his hand. "Do not worry," she said. "It must go well for us. After all, how terrible can your uncle be if he has raised two such good-hearted nephews?"

With that, Betta turned her horse away and rode down the hill to the road where Kili waited for them. Gloin and his wagon had gone ahead, unwilling to wait for those who would tarry behind; once Ered Luin was within his sights, Gloin had urged his company on as fast as their ponies would carry them in his eagerness to see his family again.

Fili, Kili and Betta rode behind more slowly. Half a mile past the ridge, the road forked, and the right-hand path wound away up the side of the valley before it disappeared behind a copse of trees. That way, Fili had meant to go when he hoped to leave Betta with Nan and Gilon. There were other paths, more often used, that led up to the farm from town, but that meant many more eyes to see them pass by.

Now, there was no need for secrecy. He rode into the valley with Betta beside him and was determined not to be ashamed. There was no way to know what would be the result of introducing his new wife to his uncle. Although Thorin could be a kind-hearted and generous friend, he was also a proud and stubborn leader who guarded his folk with the ferocity of one of the great southern lions.

Fili looked around at the hills and trees that he had known since childhood. He looked at his brother and in Kili's eyes he saw the same anxious questions that he asked himself: How was Thorin, and would he be angry with them. Would they even find him at home?

.

Thorin had woken at dawn that day to look out from the narrow window of his room. From the other side, only a sharp-eyed eagle might guess that it was a window and not a narrow fissure in the irregular surface of the mountainside, but inside an elaborate frame and sill were sanded smooth and carved with Dwarven knots. Thorin leaned his hand against them as he watched the sun rise over the distant hills; yellow rays of morning light danced upon the lingering snow drifts, making them glitter like piles of fallen gold. He smiled as he thought of the loyal dwarves who would gather in his halls that evening to plan their next adventure, and then he turned away. There was work to do.

That morning, he sent out search parties, as he had promised Balin he would do, and as he watched them ride away, he admitted to himself that even he was worried. Fili and Kili had been gone longer than the two or three weeks that they had agreed to. Thorin had no doubt that they had ridden farther as well, past the low hills of Evendim and into woods east of them, no doubt, chasing their own adventure. While they had been gone, Thorin had almost made up his mind to take the lads to Erebor – how glorious it would be to reclaim the old kingdom with his sister-sons beside him! But perhaps they were too young.

At mid-day, however, his fears were laid to rest. Two of the search parties returned with news. First, that Tharkun had been seen lurking about the valley and town below. Why he had not come straight to the Dwarfhome as promised, Thorin could not say, but he knew that wizards were fickle creatures. They arrived exactly when they meant to and not a moment sooner. The second message was better news: Gloin and his wagon had been met upon the road and, coming up behind them, Fili and Kili with a human woman.

Back in his library again, thinking over the news, Thorin frowned. He had only Fror's word to go by that it must indeed be the same woman who had set out with the brothers (besides Fili and Kili, only Fror had seen her), but why would she still be around? Why had Fili not sent her off at once?

He shook his head and put the woman out of his mind. What did that matter? Gloin would reach the mountain in time to join the first gathering of Thorin's council, and now Fili would be there, too. Balin had worried all night for nothing, Thorin thought to himself. But if that were so, why was he still uneasy? There was a strange feeling in the air, a sense that not all was well under the mountains, and he did not like it. Too few dwarves had answered his call, and there had been no word yet from Dain.

Perhaps it was only the Wizard, he decided. Tharkun had a way about him. He was always prying into the business of other folk until you never knew whether the thoughts in your head were your own or the seeds he had planted. Had it been wise to confide in the Grey Wanderer that dark night in Bree months ago?

Wise or not, it was done.

His mind made up, Thorin left the small library. There was too much to do, a feast to prepare. Dwalin was back at his post as Honor Guard and stood at attention as soon as Thorin opened the door. He guessed that the muscle-bound warrior had been given an earful by his brother and that it was Balin who had ordered him to this task again instead of handing it off to one of the older dwarves.

"Your brother worries too much about me," Thorin said. "Today is a good day."

"Aye." Dwalin nodded, but his face was anxious as if he, too, felt something forbidding in the air.

"Yes," Thorin repeated, putting aside uncertainty. "A good day."

.

The year was yet young and the sun set early. The sky was growing dark in the late afternoon when Gloin's rickety wagon finally rolled up the steep slope to Ered Luin. The Gates stood open; his wagon creaked past and up the road onto the wide lawn that stretched between the mountain and the wall. His pony whinnied and shook its head, but the animals were as grateful as the dwarves themselves to be home and in sight of good food, good rest and a clean bed of straw – even if for one, that straw was stuffed into a thick mattress and for the other it was laid on the floor of a warm stall.

Gloin guided his company across the yard and dismounted near the stables. The other dwarves were quick to hand the reins of their ponies over to the stable-hands and to hurry up the stairs, through the doors and on into the mountain. All were eager to see their families again, but Gloin stayed behind to be sure that his wagon was led safely down the deep-cut road into the caverns beneath the halls of Ered Luin. Later, he would oversee the unloading of his goods and make sure that every plate and coin was delivered safely to his own rooms (and very spacious rooms they were, too, though his family was small). He was as eager as any of his company to see his wife and son again, but he waited long enough to ensure that his goods and ponies were well-looked after before he allowed his tired legs to climb the steps that led up to the front doors of the mountain.

At the top of the stairs, Gloin paused to look back. Fili and Kili were only just passing through the Gates and into the yard. Their human woman rode with them, and Gloin shook his head. He was third-cousin, once removed, to those lads, and that made them close kin, but he had rarely agreed with the goings-on of Thrain's branch of the Durin line. Something queer had been handed down through that family…

Gloin shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. He would keep his nose in his own business – which was doing quite well at the moment – and he would wait to hear what Thorin had to say. This business with Erebor, as dark as it was, must be settled first. The rest would sort itself out as it always did.

.

Fili rode up to the stables in time to see Gloin disappear though the doors into the mountain. He frowned after the dwarf, then dismounted and stood by, watching while Betta swung herself down from the saddle one-handed. Her movements were still hesitant and her balance not yet quite right, but she refused to let him help her. In any case, his fears proved unfounded as she landed solidly on her two feet. She was learning to adjust to the loss of her hand. There was a growing confidence in her movements that made him truly believe that she would one day be able to look after herself.

The stables were nearly filled up with Gloin's ponies and the half dozen other animals that belonged to the dwarves who had ridden long miles to be at Thorin's council. Even so, the stable-hands were prepared to take in three more. They were not prepared, however, to see a one-handed woman of the tall folk dismount and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the heir of their lord as if she had every right to be there. More than one pair of eyes stopped to stare at Betta as she patted the nose of her quiet pony and bid it farewell after the long miles they had ridden together. The animal nuzzled her hand and then allowed itself to be led away.

"Well, I suppose that there's no sense in putting it off," Kili said, stepping up beside her. He had been careful to take down their baggage before any other dwarf could lay hands on it, and he handed Betta her old pack. Slung over his shoulder and half hidden under his cloak was the sack of raw gold that they had brought out of the northern hills.

Fili nodded, and he met Betta's eyes, smiling to reassure her. If they had been in any other place, he might have held her hand or touched her arm, but they were among Dwarves and any gesture of affection must wait until after they had spoken with Thorin. Rumor travelled quickly underground, and Fili knew that he must show his support through such words and looks as could not be held against him later on.

Fili and Kili climbed the stairs with Betta between them but two steps behind. She was firm in her resolve but her heart beat fast against her chest as she looked into the darkness beyond the great, gaping doors. As often as she had faced down Dwarves before, it had always been in open forges or the common rooms of inns that catered to many different folk. Never before had she entered so deeply into their own halls and been surrounded by the culture that she barely understood...

The darkness underground brought back cold memories of black tunnels and swift-flowing rivers. Betta felt adrift and stopped short before they reached the top of the stairs. She must have made some sound, both Fili and Kili turned to look at her, their faces wore identical expressions of concern.

Fili resisted the urge to catch hold of her arm. She did not seem in danger of falling or fainting, but she looked up at him with sudden earnestness. "What do I call him?" she demanded.

"Call who?" Fili looked to Kili, but his brother was equally confused.

"What do I call your uncle?" she asked. "Is he King? Is he Lord? What title do I use?"

Fili laughed with relief and opened his mouth to answer but the words stopped in his throat. What title _should_ Betta give to her future uncle-in-law who was also the one dwarf in Ered Luin who could order her death against Fili's own wishes? Thorin rarely called himself King as his father and grandfather had done before him, and the delegations from town were made up of so many rag-tag groups of shop-keepers, farmers and traders that they neither gave nor received any titles on the rare occasion that they came into the mountain to do business. Most negotiations were carried out through intermediaries upon the lawn within the Gates.

From a young age, Fili had been trained in his role as heir and prince, but all his learning left him now. How was a human woman without rank or property to address a Dwarf King when she arrived to claim his heir for her husband? This was a question that had never come up in any of his lessons; understandably, as the writers of ancient Dwarf etiquette had never imagined such an occasion would ever take place. Betta looked to Fili for an answer, but it was Kili who spoke up and saved them.

"I would recommend that you call him 'sir'," he told Betta, smiling. "It is what I call him when I know that I am in trouble, and I think it will do just as well for you."

She nodded, breathing a sigh of relief, and Fili did, too, grateful not for the first time that his brother had such a deep well of good sense within him.

They ascended the stairs and reached the front doors that had been flung wide for Gloin and his company. A handful of well-dressed guards stood ready to receive the two princes returned from their long journey.

Upon seeing the brothers, a polite murmur of Dwarvish language welcomed them home. Even within their mountain, the Dwarves of Ered Luin most often spoke in the common tongue, but words of welcome were formal and, though Betta did not know the language, she recognized the joy that the dwarven guard felt at the safe return of their lord's nephews.

"Your uncle has spent the better part of two days searching for you," one dwarf, the Captain of the Guard, who wore an iron belt with a single gold link about his waist, said to Fili as he moved to pass by. "He has had the whole mountain up in arms, overturning every stone."

Fili nodded, acknowledging the words with an indistinct grunt. He was eager to get into the mountain and away from the guards before they spied Betta, but Kili was in front of him and he had stopped short at the Captain's words. "Only two days?" he said. "But we have been gone two months. What has Thorin been doing that he did not miss us sooner?"

Impatient, Fili nudged his brother's boot with his toe, but Kili only frowned at him, not understanding.

"Well, it is more than I can say…" the Captain said. It was not his place to pass gossip regarding the royal family, even among the family itself, but it did not matter. Fili might easily have guessed what the dwarf would have said, if he had had a mind to say it.

"Go on, Kili." Fili nudged his brother again. "We will see what is up for ourselves soon enough." With a pointed look, he finally made his brother understand his purpose, but too late. Before either of them could take a step, the Captain looked over Fili's shoulder and saw Betta.

She would have been difficult to miss if he had not been distracted by the long-hoped for return of the brothers. Equal to Fili in height, Betta was taller than nearly every other dwarf in Ered Luin and, as low as she ducked her head, she could not hide her smooth face and small features from them.

"What is this?" the Captain demanded, putting his hand on his axe hilt. "If that is a dwarf-maid, then I am an elf-brat. She should not be here!" The guards around them drew their weapons and the Captain would have driven her off with the flat of his axe if Fili had not stood between them.

"She _should_ be here, for I have brought her here with me," he said.

"And me, too," Kili added, though he stood in the doorway and had no easy way to come between Betta and the blade.

"Norin, isn't it?" Fili said, looking at the Captain more carefully. "This woman has suffered much and is worthy of better treatment from you. She saved my life in the northern hills, and I bring her here to meet my uncle. He will be impatient to reward her for her service to his nephews. Now, quickly, tell me where is Thorin?"

Norin looked back and forth between the two brothers, then up a few inches to Betta's pale face. She was taller than him but could not have frightened even a small Hobbit child with her looks. Anyone could see that she was no threat. Her face still bore the mark of long illness and the sling that bound her injured arm was tied across her chest, displaying the blunt end of her broken right arm for all to see. She was _in_ more danger than a danger to them, and she knew it. Not until she had seen the three dwarves reach suddenly for their weapons had she realized how precariously was her place among them.

Norin wavered between his duty to Thorin and his loyalty to the two brothers. He knew that, officially, Fili had the right to bring whomsoever he chose into the halls of Ered Luin, but that right had never been tested. There had never been any need to test it.

"Still," Norin said, "I should send word ahead…"

"Then send it with me," Fili said, growing angry. "I mean to go straight to my uncle, and no other messenger will arrive more swiftly than myself. I will be responsible for her, and I vouch safe that she is no spy. Now, tell me, where is Thorin? Tell me, or command one of these dwarves in your service to lead me and my brother to him. Our guest may be a surprise to you, but we, at least, are expected."

The guards shifted uncomfortably in their heavy boots. There were few who could stand up to Fili when he was determined, and none but Thorin could stand before his rage. Norin did not protest again.

"Every dwarf in the mountain knows where to find Master Thorin," he said. He gave orders for the remaining guards to return to their duties, then he bowed and gestured for Fili to enter with him through the front doors. Betta followed them, and Kili walked beside her.

"He is in the Great Hall," Norin went on as they walked down the dimly lit passage. "He has hardly left that room for many weeks. Master Gloin has just returned from his trade and he has gone to meet with your uncle. There are a few others as well. They are sitting down to dinner, I believe…"

"Then we shall follow their example," Kili said. He was relieved to see that no other dwarven guard followed them. The sack of gold was heavy under his arm, but he did his best to carry it as if it weighed nothing at all, and he hoped that no questions would be asked about it.

Betta had to hurry to keep up with the three of them. Though their legs were short, the dwarves travelled at a swift pace when they were sure of their footing. The main road through Ered Luin was wide and its vaulted ceiling swept high overhead, but the small torches on the walls did little to light the darkness. She walked quickly and kept her eyes on Fili's back. He walked with Norin and did not dare to look back at her for fear that her anxious eyes would cause him to doubt. They were in it now.

Few dwarves lingered in the passages between the front door and the entrance to the Great Hall. Whether they were all busy at other tasks or whether word had spread of his unexpected guest, Fili could not say and did not care. The fewer eyes that saw Betta, the better.

But he wondered, who were the other dwarves that Norin had mentioned? Probably Balin and Dwalin, perhaps Gimli, too. If Thorin were at home, then the quest had not yet begun. It was not too late to convince his uncle to take him and Kili along.

The doors to the Great Hall were shut but through them, Fili heard the murmur of voices. Norin hesitated once more. "Perhaps it would be best if she were to return another day…" he suggested.

"It would be best if you would announce us as I have asked you to do," Fili said. He doubted whether his courage would last another day. A wiser dwarf would have turned back, but Fili had always been more stubborn than wise, and he was as eager to see his uncle again as to have the meeting over and done with.

"As you wish," Norin said, unhappily, and he reached out to pushed open the doors.

A rush of familiar sounds and smells swept out to greet them as Fili took in the roaring fire and long, stone table piled high with food and jugs of ale. At least two dozen dwarves were there, sitting and standing, all speaking together. It was too early in the feast for song, but that would come soon, once the food had settled in their bellies and the ale into their blood. Kili laughed out loud and dropped his sack near the door, forgetting it and everything else as he hurried forward to throw an arm about his friend Gimli. It was only Betta's presence that kept Fili from losing himself in the crowd of well-known faces that all turned to them. There was no need for Norin to call out their names. A loud cheer went up and many voices called out to them, a wild noise of greetings. Balin was the first to come forward. He put a hand on Fili's shoulder and looked over at Kili with a smile.

"You do not know how much I have worried…" he began, but before Fili could feel guilty for causing the old dwarf any fear, Thorin was striding down from the head of the table, laughing and calling out, "There! Did I not tell you, Balin? There is no trouble so deep that these lads could not get themselves out of it!"

"Indeed, you said so," Balin agreed, stepping aside to give Thorin room to embrace his nephews. He did not sound very approving but then his eyes passed over the lads and saw the huddled creature who stood behind them.

"Who is this?" he asked. "Have you brought home a friend, lads?"

Balin's words were kind, and he would have willingly shown all the appropriate hospitalities to any Man, Elf or Dwarf that either Durin brother brought home, but he knew that Thorin would not be so welcoming. Now was not the time to try his patience, either, or confront his prejudices. The brothers did not know the state their uncle was in.

Until that moment, Thorin's eyes had been only for his nephews, their dirty faces and unkempt beards, but he heard Balin and looked past them and so did the other dwarves behind him. Only Gimli had been too busy rehashing old jokes with Kili to notice or hear what was said. Gloin stepped up to them and removed his son from under Kili's arm. He ushered Gimli out of the Hall, hushing his questions and blocking any sight of Betta with his body. He had no intention of allowing one of the tall folk – or the foolishness of the brothers – to corrupt his young son.

Several others of the dwarves had the same idea. Slowly, many of them slipped away, leaving the Hall or moving to far corners where they stood by themselves and cast dark, suspicious glances at the stranger. The Hall that had previously been filled with the laughter of many voices fell silent, leaving only the crackling of the fire in the grate and the pounding of his heart to echo in Fili's ears. He felt a slow dread growing in his belly as he watched his uncle's eyes narrow in on the human woman who had invaded his kingdom.

"Uncle, if I may introduce…" he began, but got no farther. Thorin did not hear him.

"Tell me that I am deceived, Fili," he said with anger smoldering in his dark eyes. "Tell me that you have not brought one of the tall folk here. Not now. No nephew of mine would be such a fool."

"Betta is our friend, she has…"

"You make friends with the tall folk!" Thorin sneered at her. "Their race is weak and deceitful. They are scheming creatures, disloyal even to their own kin who they rarely count beyond their father's father. What in Durin's name has gotten into that thick skull of yours!? Why would you…?" And then suddenly his anger cleared and he looked at Betta with new eyes. "Betta is her name, you say? Ah, I see it now. This is your treasure-hunter, the woman who paid you to take her into the hills. Well, I hope she has gotten her money's worth. How much gold did you bring back to us, lads?"

"We, ah…" Fili glanced at his brother and Kili hung his head. They had a sack of gold, certainly, but it was not theirs to give up. The lesser treasure from old Grahn was among the baggage that the stable hands had carried to the brothers' rooms. Fili wished that he had remembered to bring it with him.

But Thorin was not waiting for an answer. "You brought back nothing, and it is no more than I expected. This has always been a joke to you. You think the eastern road will be a pleasant escape from your duties at home? Our quest means so little that you would bring a stranger into our halls to hear our plans and carry them away to waiting ears! What has she seen? Who might she tell? Did you even think about what you were doing?"

He shook his head at them. "We have many enemies who would be eager to know what she has heard. I cannot allow your _friend_ to carry tales out of these halls. You brought her here, Fili, and here she shall stay. " He gestured to the guards that stood near the door. "Take her down below. I have no time now to deal with her. I have no time for these games!"

Norin glanced at Fili, helpless to refuse his lord's direct order.

"You would imprison the woman who saved your nephews' lives?" Fili asked, putting out his arm before the guards could take hold of Betta. "She is a stranger to you, but not to us, and we might explain if only you would only listen, uncle!"

Thorin frowned and looked back and forth between his nephews and the pale-faced woman. He shook his head. "That is not true. That two strong Dwarves would need a one-armed woman to…"

"She did not always have one arm," Kili said quietly, and not for the first time was he forced to wield this weapon in defense of Betta's honor. "She lost it saving me, uncle, and it nearly killed her."

Thorin stared at him, and then at Fili. Two months ago, before the trials of their long journey, neither brother would have stood so long in the face of his anger or defied his will so openly. They would have retreated to their rooms to regroup and try a new course another day. Not now. Both brothers stood before him, side-by-side and firm in their purpose. Thorin looked at them in amazement and was, for a rare moment, unsure of himself.

By now, nearly all of the other dwarves – even those who had at first drawn back into the shadows – had left the Hall. Thorin looked around and saw that only Balin and Dwalin, old Fror, Norin and his guards remained. He turned his eyes on Betta once more.

"Is this true, woman?" he demanded. "Did you rescue these two reckless and impudent fools?"

Fili moved aside so that Betta might be seen. Whatever his physical height, Thorin Oakenshield was an imposing figure, and she would rather Fili had stayed where he was. She wished for a whole wall of Dwarves between her and his uncle's anger.

"I should not have come here," she said, without thinking.

"No, you should not," Thorin said. "But you are here now, and your answer will decide whether you die in my dungeons or live to see the sun again. Did you, at any time in your travels, save the lives of either of my two sister-sons?" His cheeks were red with anger and his hands clenched into fists. If she lied, or if he thought she lied, Betta had no doubt that he could kill her with a single blow of one hand.

"I did," she admitted. "Though I saved Fili only once, and he had rescued me before…"

She glanced at Fili, and he smiled, remembering the frozen grove beneath the cornerstone of Ankor. "You saved me more than once," he told her.

She smiled and shook her head, but Thorin scowled. "This is how you repay me?" he shouted, turning on Fili again. "I agree to your hopeless treasure hunt, and you bring back some beardless woman to whom you now owe your life in debt!? And you put your brother in danger, too! From Kili I would expect such things, but you, Fili! I thought that I could trust you to be safe."

He sighed. "Almost I had made up my mind to take you east with me, but now I see that you are not ready. You are still too young for so much responsibility."

"No, uncle!" Kili cried. "We have proven our courage in the north. We fought wolves and orcs! A snow-troll nearly boiled us for his soup!"

"Tall tales, and nothing more," Thorin said with a wave of his hand.

"No, it is true," Betta insisted. She might have stayed silent for any insults thrown at her, but she could not bear to hear Fili and Kili's efforts demeaned. "All that he says is true, sir. I swear, by my right hand."

Thorin frowned and looked back at her, at her maimed arm. Even he could not easily dismiss the oath she gave. "And where is this hand for you to swear upon?" he asked, his words full of scorn.

Betta glanced at Fili who looked to his brother. "We will tell you, uncle," Kili said, "if you will only hold back your judgment until the end. And then see whether you believe…"

"Speak now, and quickly," Thorin said, sitting down at the near end of the table.

Even Betta was invited to sit with them, though the dwarf who brought mugs for the brothers and filled them with ale brought nothing for her. It was Kili who insisted that she be given drink as well, and he asked for plates, also, refusing to let his brother speak a word of their story until it was done. Betta would rather have been ignored. She understood better why both brothers had always seemed so cautious when speaking of their uncle. The weight of his stern gaze alone was crushing.

Eventually, a mug was found for Betta. The cup was half-full of plain water, but she would have been grateful for even a mouthful of sour beer to wet her dry throat. There was no plate for her; she could not have swallowed a bite of food, and the brothers, though served a heaping plateful of meat and bread, barely touched their meal.

Finally, Fili began their tale. He started at the inn with the thieves that had attacked them, and described the road and the bodies they found. Skipping over much of their journey, he told of the orcs that ambushed them beneath the birch trees of Evendim, the snow-storm that caught them unawares, and the sorcerous pack of wolves that seemed to double for every one that was killed. He was speaking quickly, but stopped to linger over that battle and described with deliberate care all that Betta had done in spite of her orc-wounded arm. Especially, he told of the flight of her arrow that had killed the lead wolf and saved Kili from being devoured.

Thorin listened, expressionless, but Dwalin frowned and Balin patted his brow with his handkerchief, looking as if he were living the tale himself and did not already know the ending.

After the wolves, Fili skipped ahead, leaving out Harandir's visit and touching only briefly upon the long walk they had taken through the snow and the cold hunger of the Secret Road. He left out, of course, his own growing feelings for their guide and hoped that there would one day be a better time to admit that he had pledged himself to her upon that road.

Fili's tale had reached the high hills, and a blanket of mist covered his memories there. He would not say what he had seen upon the nightmare hillscape, and he had been unconscious during the battle with the snow-troll. Kili picked up the thread of their tale and did his best to do justice to Betta's desperate plan. He told how she had scaled the heights of the beast's high hall only to be flung down again, how she had held onto her wits long enough to distract their enemy, buying time for Kili to drag himself through the snow to recovered his sword.

It was an anxious tale that kept their audience rapt, but Betta had both lived and listened to it told before. She looked around at the dwarves. The large, grim warrior across from her Kili had named – in a whisper while they waited for their drinks to be poured – that was his cousin Dwalin. The other beside him appeared much older; his bright eyes were anxious, but he smiled as he listened to the bravery of the brothers: Balin, Betta guessed, and she was right. Thorin she knew, and did not look at him. His hand lay on the table, no longer clenched into a fist, but she knew that he had not forgotten his anger nor forgiven her yet.

The smell of tobacco reached her nose, and she looked around for the source. None of the dwarves at the table were smoking, nor were any of the guards who stood at attention near the door. She followed the thin, grey tendrils back to a far corner and there, seated on a bench nearly hidden away from the firelight, was another dwarf with a long, iron pipe.

Betta stared at him and could not decide what it was about this hidden dwarf that seemed so strange to her. Kili finished his description of the death of the snow-troll, and Fili took up the tale again of their long walk through the tunnels under Angmar. It was not long before Betta's attention was drawn back to the table, and she was called upon to tell what she had seen when the orcs from Carn Dum had attacked the brothers in the deep, river room. Fili and Kili had been too busy fighting to say for certain what had gone on around them and, after they found her again with the Lossoth, Betta had refused to speak of the battle or of her suffering after the river took her.

She told them now, because Thorin demanded it. She knew which orcs she had killed and where her arrows had struck. That had been her chief concern at the time. She spoke slowly, and her words were firm until she reached the moment when the fleeing orc had struck her and she had fallen into the river. Almost, she could feel Kili's fingers still wrapped tight about her right hand; he had held onto her and looked down at her. There had been no doubt in his eyes that he would be able to pull her up again, but Betta had known better.

"I saw the orc was behind him and knew that he could not defend himself while he still held onto me," she said, staring down at the table. She could feel their eyes upon her and on her mutilated arm. "I let go," she said, "because he would not let go, and I was swept away into darkness. I saw nothing more. I thought we all had been killed."

Kili put his hand on her shoulder, but one look from Thorin and he took it back again. Fili finished the tale quickly: more long, dark tunnels; a hidden door; and the Lossoth hunters who had saved them from starving, and who had drawn Betta, half-dead, from the river, healing her though they could not save her hand.

By this time, Gloin had slipped back into the Great Hall without his son and he heard the end of their tale. He reluctantly admitted that he had found the brothers in exactly the state they described, sheltered among the Lossoth, safe and well-fed. Nothing that he had heard – as little as it was – differed from what he had seen.

Their tale now told, Fili fell silent; hidden under the table, he held Betta's hand and waited for his uncle to speak.

"What you say holds the ring of truth," Thorin said after a long, thoughtful pause, "if only for the true foolishness that you have shown getting into such dangers." He nodded. "Yes, I believe that this woman saved your lives and I am in debt to her, as are you both. Though I think that Fili has the lesser debt owed…" He sat in silent for some time.

"And yet, you were wrong to bring this woman here," he said. "She must still be taken away."

"Thorin, no!" Kili cried, rising to his feet, but Thorin held up his hand.

"I did not say that she would be sent to prison or held against her will. No, but she must leave these halls. I will order a guard to take her into town. The sun has set by now, but it is a short walk and the inn will be open…"

"After all she has done, you would send her away?" Fili demanded. "Where can she go alone?"

"That is not my concern. She does not belong here," Thorin said. His look made it clear that he would brook no argument from either nephew. "Do not think that I am not grateful for the aid that she has rendered you. She will be generously paid for her service to our family. After we have profited from our future journey, there will be money enough to repay _all_ debts. But for now, the town is where she belongs. If she thinks herself wronged, she may press her claim for recompense from there."

He stood up and summoned Norin forward. "See that this woman leaves our halls in peace, and have one of your dwarves escort her safely to town…"

"She has no friends in town," Kili said. Betta had no money for a room at the inn, either, and no means to earn any while she was still weak.

Thorin did not know this, nor would he have cared. He saw his nephews disappointed faces and scoffed. "Then let her go to wherever she might have friends," he said. "You did not think that I would house her here? Within these halls, among Dwarves?"

"I thought that she might find a place with Nan…" Fili said, and braced himself for his uncle's anger.

Thorin frowned at him without understanding and then slowly, like the last piece of a puzzle finally being laid in its place, he saw what he had missed before. He saw how close Fili sat beside Betta, and why his right hand did not rest upon the table with his left. He recognized the looks that had passed between them. His face hardened and his eyes narrowed.

Fili expected anger, but Thorin said quietly. "Do you mean what you say, that this woman's place is… that place?" he asked, willing it not to be so. "Think hard on your answer, Fili."

"I have thought on it for many weeks," Fili said. "She belongs with Nan."

The hammer fell, and even Kili felt shocked, though he had been prepared for it. Thorin turned his back on Fili and said to Norin, "Take the woman out of my Halls. Lead her into town, if she will go that way. If not, then leave her at the Gates and lock them tight behind her."

"Thorin!" Kili protested.

"_No_! That is my final word. I will pay what is owed for your life, Kili, in my own good time. I cannot refuse that debt. But for the rest," he turned his cold eyes on Fili, "she has already taken from me a price that I never would have agreed to pay."

With that, Thorin turned and left the Great Hall. Dwalin hurried after him, still bound to his duty as Honor Guard, but the rest stayed behind. Norin frowned and did not understand what had changed at the end, but he knew his orders.

"I am sorry, Master Fili, I must do as your uncle commands." He gestured with as much respect as he could muster for Betta to follow him out of the hall.

Fili did not dare insist that he would take her himself. Thorin might have left them, but old Fror was listening and would certainly carry to his uncle's ears everything that was said. "Will you take her to Nan?" Fili begged Norin. "I know what Thorin said, but…"

The Captain shook his head. "I cannot, but I will tell her the way."

"Those paths are difficult even in daylight," Balin said. He understood why Thorin would be angry; indeed, he was more than a little angry himself, but he felt more deeply what they owed to this woman. Without her, Fili and Kili would both have been devoured many times over. "And I am needed here…"

"But I am not," a voice spoke up from the corner. Everyone turned to look, and Betta saw the dwarf that she had noticed before stand and approach the fire. As he stepped into the light, Betta realized what it was that she had thought strange before. The dwarf's face and body was much smaller than the others, his hair longer and brighter in the firelight. His clothes were different, in the same way that the clothes of the Easterlings and the Haradrim differed from the clothing of the Men of Gondor, but also because he wore a shawl tied about his waist as long as a skirt though there were trousers beneath it. No, this was not a 'he', she realized. Here was a dwarf-woman!

Betta more looked closely at her as she approached them, curious to see what manner of female form Fili was used to admiring.

The dwarf-woman's skin was a fair shade of pale golden-brown that reminded Betta of the bodies of the Easterling women. Her long hair was straight and black as coal, braided with many colored beads, but the fine strands of the beard on her chin and along her jaw were curled and unadorned. The dwarf-woman's angled eyes were painted with black coal in a way that also reminded Betta of the eastern peoples. She knew that culture only by what tales were told among refugees and descendants of ancient tradesmen, but whether this dwarf-woman came from the east or only copied their look, she certainly was not native to Fili's folk.

Though Betta did not know it yet, she was staring, gape-mouthed like a child, at Frei the Falcon's Steel of the Blacklocks, who had fought upon the fields of Azanulbizar and after the battle, Dwalin, Fundin's son, had pledged his heart to her. Many years would pass before Frei came back over the mountains and Dwalin was able to fulfill his oath, but she lived with him now in the Dwarfhome of Ered Luin far away from the land of her birth.

Frei was shorter than most dwarf-men, but her limbs were strong and straight. She strode up to the guards and even looked Fili in the eye. "I will take her to Nan's cabin," she said. "I have long meant to visit my sister there and now, it seems, I have much news to bring." Frei turned to Norin. "This woman needs no guard. I will see that she leaves the mountain."

The Captain shrugged. "I must see her to the Gates, as ordered, but I will tell the dwarf there to open them again for you when you return."

"I should hope so," Frei said. "I have no intention of begging shelter from the tall folk down below."

The other dwarves – save Balin, who was well-acquainted with the ways of his brother's wife – looked uncomfortably down at their feet, as if what she said that broke all bounds of propriety. Betta remembered Kili saying something about dwarf-women seldom leaving their mountain homes, but she knew already that Frei was no common dwarf.

"Come with me now, girl," she said, taking Betta by the arm. "Count yourself lucky and do not argue with me."

Betta had no intention of arguing with anyone. She only wished that she could have a word with Fili alone to say her farewells, but that was impossible. He smiled and nodded to her with more hope than he felt.

"There are things that I must do here, but I will come and visit you in a day or two when my uncle's anger has cooled. You have all your things? Your pack and your bow?"

"The bow was tied to Kili's saddle," Betta said, "but he may keep it in memory of the woman who once had the strength to use it."

Fili frowned as he watched the two women walk out of the Hall with Norin hurrying up behind them, and then he looked around for Kili, but his brother had slipped away. Kili had no need for sad goodbyes; he had every intention of seeing Betta again so long as she stayed with Nan. Thorin's talk of treasure had reminded him of the sack that he had carried into the Hall, and as soon as it was safe to do so, he took it up and took it out again. He must hide it somewhere safe, he knew, until he and his brother could fashion it or trade it in for coin.

Making his way quietly up the empty passage, Kili no longer regretted hiding this small treasure from Thorin. His uncle's anger was great enough that he may well forget his promise and refuse to pay Betta what honor required. She may not be going to the dungeons, but out in the wide world she would need all the help Kili could give her.

* * *

**It really is taking much longer to get these chapters out than I thought, so sorry for that, but I do hope to finish the story before BoFA come out (cross your fingers!)**

**Hope you like. Please REVIEW!**

**-Paint**


	5. Ch5: Nan's Cabin

**Middle-earth, and all who dwell within it, belongs to Tolkien. I am grateful to him for growing this beautiful garden in which our imaginations can play. Please review!**

* * *

Though Betta's last journey had been long and dangerous, at least she had been in the company of friends. Fili and Kili were behind her now, and she felt the loss in her heart as surely as she felt the lingering pain in her arm as she followed Frei out of the Great Hall.

Most of the lamps in the passages of the Dwarfhome had been put out, but the halls were not as empty as they had been the last time she passed this way. In dark corners and peering out of doorways, she saw dozens of Dwarf faces looking at her. Word had travelled fast underground and many of Thorin's folk had arrived to cast their disapproving glares upon the human woman who had dared to infiltrate their mountain. Frei's hand was wrapped firmly about Betta's arm; to restrain her or to protect her, Betta did not know. The dwarf-woman's silent scowl stifled any insults they might otherwise have thrown at her.

She was used to being stared at, and it was almost a comfort to know that the Dwarves stared at her face and scorned her for her race. The Men of the Caravan had stared at her arm, and no Dwarf's frown could have silenced the things that they said.

Too soon, Frei reached the front door with Betta in tow. The guards were still there, and to a one they looked astonished to see the human again. Undoubtedly, they believed that she would be in the dungeons by now. They were even more surprised, if it were possible, when they heard that Frei meant to leave the Dwarfhome and walk abroad alone with Betta.

The sun had set while they were in the mountain, and the hills outside were dark and full of shadow. The moon showed a thin sliver of his face through the clouds and, after the stifling halls inside, Betta gratefully turned her face to the lanterns above and welcomed the wide-open sky. Norin walked with the women across the lawn and up to the Gates where the old gatekeeper sat on his stool, nursing a mug of beer. Like all the rest, the gatekeeper stared openly at Betta's face, and he shook his head when Frei said she would go out, but he was an old Dwarf and had seen enough of the world not to be surprised by anything.

Norin stayed just long enough to see Betta step outside the Gates, then he bid Frei and turned to go, but she stopped him.

"Stand over there, girl, and wait for me, won't you?" Frei said to Betta. It was not a question, and Betta did as she was told, standing near to the patch of ground where she had once crouched to watch the sunrise while waiting for Fili to arrive. That had been months ago, but it felt like yesterday.

Norin also waited as Frei had ordered. There seemed to be no easy way to disobey the stern dwarf-woman. She was as hard and unyielding as the stone she lived under, and her coal-lined eyes seemed fashioned for anger.

From where she stood, Betta could not make out all that was said, but she heard the name Dwalin and as she looked through the iron bars of the Gate, she saw Norin blanch and nod meekly many times at whatever it was that the small dwarf-woman was ordering him to do. Eventually, he bowed and Frei bid him go. He went quickly, hurrying up the stairs and back into the mountain.

Frei nodded to the gatekeeper as she passed and then stepped outside the wall. Behind her, the great Gates creaked slowly shut and the heavy bar rang as it fell into place. Betta tensed as Frei approached her, but the dwarf-woman made no attempt to take Betta's arm again.

"This way," she said, nodding to a path that veered off the main road.

As they walked, Betta looked back and down toward the crossroads where she had weeks ago met the brothers and the three ponies that would carry them on their adventure. When would she see them again? Would she ever see them again?

Frei did not go that way. She led Betta along a winding footpath that looped up and around a tall hill to the north and then turned east where it entered a dark grove of spruce and pine. Without the dependable night-vision of a Dwarf, Betta struggled to keep her feet, and more than once she tripped over a loose stone or the raised root of a malevolent tree, but she managed not to fall or to all too far behind Frei. The branches overhead blocked nearly all light from above, and without the dwarf-woman before her, Betta would have been lost less than a mile from the Gates.

It seemed a long time that they walked through that dark wood, but eventually they left branch and bough behind. A short walk along a dry riverbed took them up to an open hillside, and Betta was surprised to see the lights of the town below her. She stood upon the northern ridge of the shallow valley, and the voices of the many townspeople in their taverns and homes came faintly to her ears.

"That path is a secret known only to Dwarves," Frei said. "You'll tell no one about it."

"You need not worry about that," Betta said. "I could not find it again if I tried." She looked at the dark shape of the trees behind her and the slightly less dark rise of steep cliffs behind them. The angled peaks of the Blue Mountains were high enough to catch the light of the silver moon, and the sight of those imposing walls only strengthened Betta's certainty that she would never see Fili again. There was more than mountain walls between them.

They walked on. Frei led the way along an uneven path that climbed to the top of the ridge, ran along for a few straight yards, and then turned sharply north, zigzagging down the steep hillside. As they descended, the lights and sounds of the town were cut off by the bulk of the hill. Betta had not been this way before, and she was surprised to see more lights upon the northern side, smaller and dimmer in the distance. She could not say how far away they were, and it was too dark to guess the lay of the land.

The path that ran downhill was wide enough for a wagon, and seemed to have been cut for one; Betta walked behind Frei, keeping carefully on the path between the deep wheel-ruts. At each turn, a level step had been cut into the hill and an embankment raised to prevent runaway carts from careening over the edge. Even in dim moonlight, Betta could see that a skilled hand had fashioned this road and kept it in good-repaired.

"It was kind of you to speak up for them," Frei said suddenly, her voice drifting out of the darkness.

The words interrupted Betta's thoughts, and she stared blankly at the dwarf-woman's back for a moment. She knew that Frei meant Fili and Kili, and expected an answer from Betta, but she was uncomfortable speaking of the brothers even to a dwarf who must already know them very well. To keep silent, however might anger an already unfriendly Frei.

"I said only what was true," Betta replied. "There is little kindness in that…"

"Not always," the dwarf-woman agreed, "but few of your race take the trouble to do so when they see no benefit to themselves. Thorin would not have kept you long in the dungeons. And if they had indeed taken you there, I would have interceded myself to at least get you the best room."

"I did not know you and had no reason to think that you would," Betta said, more than a little annoyed by the dwarf-woman's proud way of speaking. "I still do not know you, but I am not afraid of any Dwarf's dungeon. I have been in jails before, and I would only have stayed there as long as it took for Fili to sneak me out again."

Frei stopped short and turned around. Betta nearly walked into her and immediately regretted her brash reply. She was close enough to see what she thought was anger in Frei's eyes, but Frei was not angry.

"Fili!" she cried, clapping a hand over her belly as if she might at any moment double over with laughter, but she only chuckled and shook her head. "No, Fili would not do that for you, not unless his brother put him up to it. If Fili wanted you out of jail, he would first try his uncle and then, when that failed, he would march down into the dungeons full of bluster and shouting orders, demanding the keys which the guards would refuse to give him – Thorin would see to that." Frei wiped mirthful tears from her eyes and sighed. "Fili would get nothing done unless his distraction kept everyone busy long enough for Kili to pick the lock. If you are looking for a foolhardy hero to save you, girl, you bet on the wrong brother."

Betta felt her cheeks flushed hot in the cold night air. She was amazed to hear Frei speak so many words at once. "Fili is not foolhardy," Betta said, "but my choice was not wrong. He is the right brother for me."

Frei crossed her arms and all amusement left her face. She looked at Betta intently. "Even if his loyalty to Thorin leaves you to rot?" she asked.

"I have been in jails before." Betta said again, and Frei raised an eyebrow. "Not all villages are eager to welcome a single woman travelling alone," she said quietly, "and fewer still will readily believe such a woman when she claims to have acted in defense of her life…" Frei frowned and her face seemed to soften a little.

In her heart, Betta did not really believe that Fili would leave her in some dungeon cell forever, but she could not deny that Frei had known him longer, and that a dwarf-woman would understand Dwarves far better than Betta could.

The two women stared at each other for a long while, and because the light was better here, Betta took her chance to examine the dwarf-woman more closely. It was strange to see so fine a beard on a female face, but she found herself marveling more at Frei's angled eyes and olive skin that was dark even in the dim moonlight. It was her foreign features, the long, black hair and strange clothes, that reminded Betta most of home.

Lebennin was part of the realm of Gondor, there had often come merchant wagon trains from the western straights that carried the poor descendants of eastern refugees, women with dark skin and dark eyes who spread their strangely-woven cloths upon the grass. They arrived with the spring and autumn markets to sell pottery to farmers' wives and beaded bracelets to the pale-skinned Gondorian maids who wore them for good luck or as love charms. In later years, when the battles between Gondor and Near Harad had grown hot again, men would whisper against the Easterling merchants, even those whose families had dwelt in the west for generations. Any man, woman or child who bore any resemblance to Gondor's enemies risked insults and worse if they showed their faces in the wrong tavern or town.

In all her travels through Eregion and beyond, Betta had never seen a Dwarf who looked like Frei, and she did not realize for how long she had stared until Frei smiled and said quietly, "Do I look so strange to you? You did not stare this way at other dwarves."

"They do not look like you," Betta said, looking down at the ground. Would her cheeks never cool! They were red with shame now and she felt certain that Frei's sharp eyes could see it.

"It would be very strange if they did." Frei motioned for them to walk on, but now she walked beside Betta and spoke more kindly to her. "There is more than one race of Dwarves, you know, just as there is more than one race of Men."

"I have heard it said but never saw proof of the rumor."

Frei nodded. "That is understandable. It is mainly Durin's folk who dwell in the West and not many of us have mingled with them. Of course, I would not be honest if I did not admit that I have had trouble distinguishing Men from Men when I see them at a distance. I would hardly know you from any other woman of your race. Your faces are so small and plain!" She laughed and then she frowned. "But my mother's land is far from here, very far away… and so, I think, is yours," she said.

"I used to think that it was far," Betta said. "But what are a hundred leagues when you have walked a thousand? I was born in Lebennin, midway between the southern coasts and the peaks of the White Mountains. There are no dwarves there that I have seen, but for twenty five years, those hills were my home. Though it may not seem very long in the long years of the dwarves, it is more than half my life so far, and a quarter of the life that I might hope to live."

"Twenty-five years is not many," Frei agreed.

"No, but it is as long as a certain Dwarf King dwelt under The Mountain. And he does not forget his home."

Frei's dark eyes gleamed as the moonlight touched upon her sharp, sidelong look. She knew what Betta's words suggested. "Two years, twenty or two hundred," Frei said. "Home will always be home."

"And where was your home?" Betta asked.

"In the mountains east of the farthest east," Frei said. "As far as you have walked and farther. There is another coastline there, very different from the one you know. The stone is softer underfoot, and the mountains taller than the sky… the forge fires burn brighter there, for that coast is nearer to the rising sun, and her flame burns hottest when she first sets sail…"

Frei fell silent, and Betta did not dare to interrupt her. The formerly grim dwarf-woman seemed softer now, and almost eager to speak. Fili had said that there were few dwarf-women in the world, and Betta wondered how long it had been since Frei had spoken openly with another of her sex. The dwarf-women of Ered Luin lived among their own kin and others who looked like them; perhaps Frei was grateful to find an unfamiliar face, an outsider like herself. Or, perhaps dwarves were not all as tight-lipped as Kili had said they would be.

"I see that you know something of the history of our race," Frei said when she spoke again. Her voice was hard and cold but not angry. "Fili told it to you?"

"He told me a little," Betta admitted. "Kili told me more, but nothing that I could not have learned from the history books of the Elves or the scrolls in the record rooms of Minas Tirith."

"Hm." Frei did not sound convinced. "Did he tell you of the war that was fought not long ago upon the slopes of the Misty Mountains when the Dwarves met the cursed Orcs in battle? I say not long ago, but it was years before your life began."

"Kili spoke of Azanulbizar."

Frei nodded. "Yes, Azanulbizar, gateway to the kingdom of Moria…" The way she spoke the names, Betta guessed that she had other words for that mountain. "Many Dwarves marched to do battle with the orcs from places much farther than Dunland and Ered Luin. From every corner of the world came Dwarves, north, east and south as well as west. The bones of the earth echoed with the sound of our footsteps."

Frei glanced at Betta. "You have trusted me with a secret of yours. One that, I think, even Fili does not know..." Betta blanched, but Frei smiled. "Your friends are of the Longbeard race, descendants of Durin, but my kin are Blacklocks of the south-eastern Red Mountains. To the Great War would go my father, my brother, my uncles and cousins. To the third generation, our people marched away, and not even my mother's love could restrain me; I wished for revenge as they did, and glory in battle. But my kin were all slain. I alone returned to her, but she would not look at me…"

Betta felt a familiar knot in her throat. "War took my brothers," she said, "and my uncles, too. I should have followed them."

"You would be dead today if you had," Frei said but before Betta could answer back, she added, "I tell the truth, and it is kindly meant. I see in your eyes that you would not be strong enough to brave the brutalities of war. Your strength is not a warrior's strength. Your heart would break."

"It was broken already."

They had reached the bottom of the hill, and the well-cut road ran ahead of them, leading toward the lights that Betta had seen from above. The moon had risen in the sky and showed the outline of a wide cabin and a back-lit barn behind it. While the two women were still far down the road, a square of yellow light appeared and as quickly disappeared. The cabin door had opened and then been closed again. A spark was struck and a lantern lit. Betta watched the swaying light move from cabin to barn, but the person who held it did not see the two women hidden in the dark.

"Gilon is working late tonight," Frei said. She stopped walking and seemed to hesitate. "That is Nan's cabin. The road runs straight. You might find your own way from here."

"I thought that you meant to visit your sister." As anxious as she had been when the dwarf-woman was grim and silent, Betta suddenly found herself reluctant to bid farewell to Frei and go amongst unfamiliar faces once more.

Frei smiled. "Nan is not my sister in the way that you mean it. We came west over the mountains together. She was my escort and my handmaiden, for a time, until…" She shook her head. "I see now why Fili and Kili would call you friend," she said. "There is something trustworthy in your face. See! Even Frei speaks openly to you things that she should not say to any but a Dwarf, and of all the Seven Families, the Blacklocks are known for their silence.

"Go now. Tell Nan why you have come, and she will make room for you. You may carry my news for me, and I will return to the mountains and my anxious husband. He does not like me to walk abroad alone." Frei's mischievous grin showed what she thought of her husband's fears.

"Thank you," Betta said. "I would ask you to give my love to Fili, but…"

"It would be best for you to forget him," Frei said, "and show your love by allowing him to forget you." She began to turn, but stopped and looked back. "The bow you gave to Kili, it was the one you used to save his life? But that is not why you gave it to him."

Betta shrugged her shoulder and gestured to her maimed right arm. She clenched the invisible fingers of her missing fist as well, but Frei could not see that. "What use do I have for a bow that I cannot shoot?" she said. "Kili will find something to do with it."

"Perhaps," Frei said. "Perhaps you can no longer bend the bow, but that does not mean you will not one day shoot your arrows again and save other lives. Farewell."

Frei turned and started up the road again; her shape was soon lost among the shadows. Betta puzzled over the riddle that the dwarf-woman had left with her, but she could make no sense of it. She turned her back on the hill and walked slowly toward the light of the cabin. Gilon was in the barn with his lantern, but she could see the reflected light of a fire dancing on the window panes. A woman's deep voice was singing.

The cabin was larger than Betta had guessed from a distance, and the front door was tall and strongly built. An iron plate and knocker had been hammered to the wood just above a narrow, iron-barred window that was shuttered on the inside. Betta struck the heavy knocker against the plate and stepped back, anxiously waiting to see what manner of woman would answer. She had knocked on many doors before, and had had almost as many slammed in her face, but this one was more important than any one of those had been.

The narrow window opened, but closed again too quickly for Betta to examine the face that peered out at her. She heard the bolt drawn back and the heavy door opened. A motherly dwarf-woman looked out at her. Her apron was smudged with soot and her forehead smeared with flour. The hair on her chin was thin, but two short, black braids hung from the corners of her jaw square. Her cheeks were red, blistered by the wind and sun, but her eyes sparkled with good humor. They were dark and angled as Frei's eyes were.

"It is a bit late to be out walking, my girl," the dwarf-woman said cheerfully, "but you know that well enough yourself. Come in! I'll put the kettle on. You sit down and tell old Nan what ails you."

Betta was too surprised to resist being ushered into the warmth of the cabin. Not that she would have refused. The large front room seemed built for comfort and the chair that Nan aimed her at was cushioned and set close by the fire. She sat and watched as the dwarf-woman drew water from a barrel to fill the dented tea kettle which hung on a hook over the fire. A small, strangely shaped cook stove sat on the opposite side of the room and smelt of baking bread and spices that Betta could not name.

In no time at all, a warm mug was pressed into her hands and Nan pulled up a chair beside her, patting her knee and once again encouraging her to "tell all". The warmth of the welcome in this place was a balm to Betta's aching heart, and twice as wonderful after the cold reception she had received beneath Ered Luin. She did not hesitate to spill out her tale from start to finish.

Nan sat silently and listened. At first, she had smiled and nodded and murmured kind words, but as Betta's tale drew on, the dwarf-woman's face grew serious and she sat back in her chair, looking into the fire. This was not the story that Nan had expected, and Betta would learn later that the dwarf-woman had at first assumed that she was only another frightened girl from town who had gotten herself into a fix with some farmer's lad and was looking for a pinch of the herbs that Nan harvested from the hillside.

After almost an hour, Betta reached the end of her story, and she imagined that the dwarf-woman sank a little deeper into her chair when she heard that Frei had turned back without visiting her. Her face was sad but not surprised.

"Well, that is a story as ever I heard one," Nan said finally. "You've gotten yourself into a heap of trouble, and not the sort of trouble that I'm used to dealing with." She sighed. "If you had any family, I'd send you on to them, but you don't and Fili was right when he said I'd find a place for you."

Betta sat still and silent. She was tired and her head ached. At least, it seemed, Nan did not mean to put her out of doors again, but Betta was not above making her bed in the barn. She was exhausted and wished only to sleep.

Before Nan spoke again, the cabin door opened and a large man entered the room. He tall even for one of the Tall Folk - almost as tall as the Men of Minas Tirith. His strong arms were thick with muscle and his heavy boots thudded like bricks on the wood floor. He was a man built for hard labor, and Betta had no doubt that he had built this cabin, the barn and might even be the one who looked after the road that she had walked to get to them. Around his neck, the man wore a heavy apron and carried two thick gloves in one hand. He carried the scent of iron and fire with him, too, and hung his lantern on a hook before nodding to Nan and then passing out of the front room and through another door into what Betta guessed must be a bedroom.

"Wait here a moment while I speak with my husband," Nan said to her as she stood up and followed after Gilon.

Betta huddled down in her chair, holding her injured arm close to her chest. She wished she knew where Fili was, what he was doing and whether his uncle was still angry with him. She wondered how Kili had fared with his surreptitious sack of gold. She no longer expected to see any of the profits from their journey. Frei was right, and it was best to forget the brothers, to look ahead and not behind. If Nan meant to keep her, then she must find a way to earn that keep. With one less hand, her life would be twice as hard.

.

At the same time that Betta and Frei were making their way down the hill toward Nan's cabin, Fili was sitting alone in the Great Hall, eating what little he could stomach of the cold meat and dry bread that had been left for him and waiting for Kili to return.

Norin and his guards had gone with Betta. Old Fror had left soon after that. Balin had had lingered long enough to offer a few words of comfort to his disconsolate cousin, but in the end, he too had gone. There were excuses to be made and rumors to subdue. Many eyes had seen Betta leave, but the few who had been in the Great Hall and heard what had been said would be keeping their mouths shut.

At first, Fili was glad that they had arrived home so late in the day, long after most Dwarves put down their work and went back to their rooms to be with their families or to sleep. Tomorrow, he would have to resume his regular duties within the mountain, checking the mines down below, speaking to the forge-master, and generally making sure that all was as it should be.

"Nothing ever changes around here," he muttered and left the Great Hall.

Kili was not coming back, and so Fili went in search of him. It would be a few days before he could safely take his knives out into the woods; under the pretense of hunting, he might steal an hour or two to visit Betta in her new home, but there would be little freedom under the mountain if Thorin thought that his quest was threatened by unseen enemies and secret spies.

Fili walked the halls, noting the same cracks in the walls, the same smoking lamp near his quarters. Nothing had changed. It was as if he had not been gone these past two months, had not nearly died, had not fallen in love. But somehow the comfort that he had once felt within these familiar walls had gone. He was restless and wished that he could speak with his brother and learn whether Kili, too, felt the tightness in his chest, the suffocating closeness of the air around him.

But Kili was not in their rooms. Their baggage had been brought in from the stable and with it the looted coins from Grahn's treasure chest. Fili left them there and walked back up to the Great hall. He knew that he could not sleep, and he had already tried and failed to eat. He wondered whether Betta had reached Nan's cabin yet and whether she felt welcome there. Gilon had built the cabin large enough, but its wooden walls were a poor substitute for the grand carved stone of the Dwarfhome. Betta would be content, Fili decided. She was used to wide-open spaces, but still, he was ashamed that he could not offer her something better.

"Not yet," he reminded himself. Once the gold of Erebor was in his hands, Thorin would be easier to reason with. He would see that Fili was determined and his love for his nephew would win out.

The Great Hall was still empty when he returned to it and, though he would rather have had a quiet conversation with his brother, Fili knew that there was someone else that he must speak to now that the others had gone to bed.

He pushed through the narrow door behind the raised dais and walked slowly down the low passage toward the Durin family library. How many long days had he spent down there with Balin leaning over him as he recited the history of their race? How often in the years since his mother's death had Fili been forced to retrieve his uncle from that room and beg Thorin to take some food or sleep? Though Fili had grown somewhat taller, the library had not changed at all. It still smelled of dust and soot and sour ink.

The fire had burned low. No one had been in to stoke up the flames and Thorin sat unmoving at his table, staring at a pile of maps without seeing them. He did not look up, though he must surely know that his nephew was there.

"Will you not speak with me?" Fili asked.

"There is nothing more to say," Thorin answered. He stood and turned his back to his nephew. He leaned his arm heavily against the mantle of the fireplace and looked into the flames. How often had he stood just so, dreaming of dragon fire? But the greatest threat to his family had come not from a dragon, but from a small, beardless woman.

"Gloin said that you have summoned our kin to these mountains. He thinks you make plans for war," Fili said, changing to a more neutral subject. "I saw Dori and Ori here tonight, and Nori, too. I am more surprised that he would come than that Gloin would abandon his business in Dunland…"

"Nori knows where his loyalties lie."

Fili winced. "Such feelings are seldom ours to order as we would, uncle. It was not my choice to fall in love."

"No, but you chose to bring her here." Thorin turned to look at him, his face full of anger and wounded pride. "You might have left her anywhere, given her money and sent her off. That would have been the honorable thing to do. Instead, you chose to bring her here and throw it in my face, this unnatural infatuation that you pretend is love!"

Fili clenched his fists and swallowed the words he might have said. Thorin would not hear them. "Betta did not think it right for me to hide this from you," he said slowly, clenching his teeth to bite back his anger. "I agreed with her reasoning. I am not ashamed of her."

"You should be ashamed of yourself!" Thorin turned his back again and waved Fili off. He was dismissed, but he did not go.

"You said before that you had made up your mind to take Kili and I to Erebor…"

"Yes, before I learned what a spectacle you had made of yourselves in the northern lands."

"That was not our fault!" Fili cried. "We had hardly any map and were not prepared for the cold and the snow. Our ponies were lost, the food ran out! The malevolence in those mountains was more than any Dwarf could bear!"

"Then you should have come home!" Thorin shouted. "So many things you say were not your choice and are not your fault… but _why did you not come home_!?"

Fili stared at his uncle. "You would rather I had given up the journey?" he asked, amazed. "Is that the lesson you wished us to learn? That when there is trouble, we must give up and go home? There will be worse than orcs and trolls when you arrive at Erebor, if you cannot raise an army to follow you. Will you travel half a world away only to look upon the dragon and then turn your back and go home?"

"Erebor _is_ our home! Or have you forgotten that!" Thorin pressed his fist down upon the table, his knuckles covering the five-pointed star that was The Lonely Mountain. "You have not seen The Mountain. You do not know those halls as I know them. You did not watch them burn!"

"No, I did not," Fili said, softening his voice and looking with pity upon his uncle's grief. "I have not seen them, nor will I ever, nor will Kili, if you do not let us go with you now and help you to reclaim them. You cannot make this journey without us." He stood at the opposite end of the table. There were no maps under his fists, but he was determined and did not flinch in the face of his uncle's fury. "You _cannot_ leave us behind."

Thorin scowled, but in his heart, he felt the stirring of pride. Maybe the lads _had_ managed to learn something useful while they were freezing their noses in the Forodwaith.

Thorin stood up straight. "I will think on what you have said. My mind is not yet made up."

As much as Fili wished for a final answer tonight, he knew that this was better than he might have had. "Thank you, uncle," he said, bowing his head in surrender, but he knew that it would not be many days before he raised this question again.

Thorin nodded and sat down. He passed his hands over the maps, but there was nothing in them that he had not memorized long ago. No new scrolls would appear at his elbow to answer the doubts that he felt in his heart or to occupy his anxious thoughts.

"You did well, Fili," he said, looking up at his nephew. "You kept Kili safe and brought him home to me. Even keeping that damned woman with you must be worth something if it kept your brother alive."

"I would have turned back many times," Fili admitted, "but Kili kept on. He is a stubborn Dwarf."

Thorin smiled. "He gets it from your mother."

"Not just our mother," Fili said, smiling sadly. "Then we are forgiven?"

"Yes, yes, forgiven," Thorin sighed, "but I must take care to keep you both under guard from now on. Who knows what trouble you will get into now that you have had a taste of adventure?"

Fili smiled. He hesitated for only a moment, but his heart demanded to know. "And what about Betta?" he asked, and saw the corners of Thorin's mouth twitch and draw back into a scowl. He pressed on. "What might she do to earn your forgiveness, uncle?"

"That woman has stolen my nephew. She has murdered the dwarflings that he would have fathered with a dwarf-woman and risked the survival of our family line. These crimes are unforgivable."

"But the blame is not hers." Fili swallowed the knot in his throat. "There must be something she might do to earn your favor…"

"Only one thing can I think of which might have caused me to look upon that creature with any favor," Thorin said, unmoved by his nephew's despair. "If she had died defending you, she would have proved herself worthy of honor. Alive, she is only a foolish woman who has bewitched my twice-foolish nephew and earned my enmity forever.

"Now, go. Leave me in peace. I have much to think on. Do not imagine that your place in my company is at all certain. I have yet to decide about you." He tugged at his beard thoughtfully. "Kili I might take, if only to keep him free of your woman's influence. I should have one heir at least by my side when I look upon Erebor again, and he seemed too friendly with her tonight..."

Fili felt his face flush red to the top of his ears. He said nothing and turned to go, but Thorin was not finished. "That woman will never again enter these halls, Fili, nor shall you leave them while I am here to prevent it. You will learn the lesson that I mean to teach: Stay away from the tall folk! They are rats on the ground and treacherous. They are beneath you."

Fili did not answer. He shut the door gently behind him and left his uncle to his maps and scrolls. The walls of the passages blurred as he walked by. Bitter tears stung his eyes, and he wondered where was Kili in all of this darkness.

.

Thorin sat for a long time, alone and stewing on his chaotic thoughts. He did not know what to do with his nephew. Of all the bad omens, this was the worst, and the best ending that he could hope for, if all that Fili said was true – which Thorin was not quite ready to admit – would be for his nephew to give up the woman and follow his uncle into spinsterhood. But that would mean cursing their folk with another childless king and hoping that Kili would not love as foolishly as had his older brother.

He sighed and stood up, feeling his tired, old bones creaking in protest. Would that he had started this quest years ago, before age had weakened his resolve. Dis had held him back for a long time, delaying him, but she could not make him forget his oath to their father. Erebor must be avenged! The Dragon would pay!

Thorin shuffled out into the Great Hall and stood before the wooden throne. He remembered the day that it had been carved from the trees upon the northern slopes of the White Mountains. Thror had always declared that the wood gave him splinters, but they were moving too often in those days to cut a stone chair worthy of the King, and it would have been too heavy to move. Thrain suffered the demeaning seat with less complaint than his father had, but then, the first time that he had taken the throne was the day old Nar announce that Thror had been killed by the hand of Azog the Cursed at Moria.

The Dwarves of Durin had dwelt for many years within Ered Luin, and Thorin might have long ago commissioned a grand seat of stone, tall and proud, a throne that his people could look upon with honor and respect. But he had not done it. To build such a throne would be to admit that this was his kingdom now, this dismal, diminished realm by the sea. It would be to abandon all hope of reclaiming Erebor, and that, Thorin could not do.

"One does not change the past by frowning at it," a stern voice spoke up behind him, "and it is the future that concerns us now, Thorin Oakenshield!"

Thorin spun around, his hand reaching for the axe that was not at his belt. Why carry weapons in his own hall, he often said, but he wished for one now.

"Is that any way to greet an old friend?"

"Old you may be, Tharkun, but whether we are friends remains to be seen," Thorin answered. "You have taken your time in coming. It has been months since you promised to join me here."

"I was delayed," Gandalf said, stepping out of the shadows. "I was finding things out, as usual, many things that you would be interested to hear."

"If these things interest me, then I know them already," Thorin said. "I have my own way of gathering news."

"I do not doubt that you do." Gandalf frowned down at the exiled Dwarf King. "Is there a more private where we may speak? I have heard much of your story already, but I would like a bit more detail before I decide what help I can offer you… if any."

"This hall is private enough. We will not be interrupted here," Thorin said, but he felt the heavy weight of his father's throne behind him. "However, I take your meaning. You wizards are always looking for some close and quiet room in which to do your meddling. This way." Thorin started back down the hall toward the library.

"I do not 'meddle'," Gandalf said. "Do not forget, Thorin Oakenshield, that it was _you_ who asked for _my_ help, and I have not yet decided whether I will give it to you."

"Nor have I decided whether I will take it," Thorin said. "Who let you in, anyway? I ordered the Gates locked at nightfall."

"I was told that I was expected," Gandalf said, which was not really an answer, nor was it meant to be one.

Thorin glanced at the old Wizard, unconvinced, but he was not about to argue so small a point. He would have a word with Norin in the morning, and with whoever had been on watch at the Gate. At least, the Wizard should have been announced before he had reached the Great Hall. Two sneaking visitors in one night, what was this mountain coming to!

* * *

**I miss my old followers and their lovely reviews :( ****I hope you all are enjoying the drama anyway, even if most of you aren't telling me whether you enjoy it ;) **

**Only a few days left until DOS EE!**

**-Paint**


	6. Ch6: Many Meetings, Plans Are Made

**Middle-earth, and all who dwell within it, belongs to Tolkien. I am grateful to him for growing this beautiful garden in which our imaginations can play. Please review!**

* * *

The fire in the Durin family library had burned down to a smoldering lump of embers, but it had burned hot for so long in recent days while Thorin brooded over his maps that the heat had sunk into the walls and the room smelt like an over-baked kiln, sharp and metallic. Many piles of unrolled parchment creaked softly in the dry air, and the only other sound was the whisper of Gandalf's breath as he sucked on his long pipe. He had hardly spoken to ask questions as Thorin repeated the old stories of the coming of the dragon and the greed and gold-sickness that had affected his grandfather in the months before; he sat thinking and puffing at his pipe while wreathes of smoke twined around his grey head.

Thorin had said his piece and sat now silently as well, smoking his own pipe and thinking back on old times. As a young dwarf, he had often wondered whether Thror's love of gold – powerful even for a Dwarf – and his eagerness to hoard as much of the stuff as he could, digging it out of the mountain's deep roots and piling it in hall upon hall, room after room… had his grandfather's gold-sickness not been part of what brought the foul beast down upon them?

Gandalf waved away his worries. "That is superstition, nothing more," he said, shaking his head, but Thorin was not convinced. "I do not doubt that rumors of a hill of gold within Erebor were what brought Smaug to the mountain," Gandalf went on. "Had your folk been less greedy, you would have had less gold to tempt the dragon, but that is the only way that your grandfather's moods had anything to do with it."

Thorin did not agree with the wizard, nor did he disagree. As Gandalf often said, the past could not be changed, and it did little good to argue over what had or had not brought down the calamity that was Smaug.

"But I know of the dragon already," Gandalf said. "And I know that there are many grievances held throughout the long history of the Dwarves. What I wish to know now is why, Thorin? Why _now_? Surely this injustice has smoldered long in the hearts of your kin, your father and your grandfather. What stokes the fire to burning now, and so suddenly that you would stop me upon the road? That is what I wish to understand before I decide whether it is worth the trouble I would be at in helping you."

Thorin frowned and leaned back in his chair. Before entering the library, he had summoned the nearest dwarf and sent him off to find Balin. His cousin should be here for this meeting, but he was late in coming. Thorin closed his eyes and, for a moment, he saw his sister's face, frowning at him and shaking her head.

"You are right that the flame has long burned in my breast," he said, opening his eyes again. "Thror wandered toward Moria because he knew that he could not get near his own home. He was killed by the goblins, and thus began the Great War…"

"So I have heard," Gandalf said, nodding.

"But before Thror left, he charged my father to one day reclaim our lost kingdom. And to that same oath did my father swear me…" Thorin watched Gandalf closely through narrowed eyes. "I do not doubt that your many spies have also told you that Thrain, my father, went missing many years ago."

Gandalf frowned and did not answer.

"After the war with the orcs, Thrain returned with me and built these halls and helped to settle our wandering people, but it was not long after that that he was overcome with a desire to see his ancient home again. He knew the time was not ripe to reclaim the Lonely Mountain, but he imagined that he might… No, I will say it now: he was _obsessed_ with the idea that he could creep in and take back some small treasure that would sooth his longing and comfort him in his old age. I could not dissuade him and he departed with only a handful of others, leaving me behind to lead our people in his stead.

"My father reached the western eaves of Mirkwood before he was overtaken by his enemies. In the dark of night, he vanished and none have seen him since, but I do not believe that he is dead. He is out there somewhere, perhaps witless and wandering, but alive! I have searched for him to no avail, but I refuse to give up hope. He may yet be found or some word of him will reach me, but through all my fruitless searching it has become clear to me is that the time is now to fulfill my father's oath. The Mountain has lain too long in our enemy's hands.

"You ask what stokes this flame to burning?" Thorin struck his fist upon the arm of his chair. "Nothing! The fire has always burned hot in my breast, but even righteous anger must bide its time and build the strength it needs to act. I have sent word to all my kin, summoning the willing to once again wield axe and hammer in vengeance for the fallen. I ask for your aid, Tharkun, but with or without it, I wait only for my friends to answer my call, and then we will ride to Erebor and take back what is ours!"

Gandalf frowned and smoked furiously at his pipe. He did not like what he had heard, but he said nothing. Thorin, too, was frowning. His anger had faltered and he stared down at the map before him

"And yet…" he said quietly.

Gandalf looked up.

"And yet, perhaps my father _did_ reach the mountain. He was headed that way when he went missing. Perhaps he lost his companions but found his path alone through the woods. Thror had a secret way out of Erebor; of this, I am certain. How else could he and my father have escaped the wrath of the dragon with only singed beards and no wounds upon them? And, if there is a way out, then there must be a way in… a secret door known only to my father and grandfather. If Thrain did indeed reach the mountain, could he not, even now, be living in those halls that he loved, hiding within sight of the beast and waiting for help to find him?"

Thorin looked to Gandalf with hope in his eyes, but Gandalf shook his head.

"Thrain is not in Erebor," he said. "Smaug knows the scent of Dwarf far too well to allow even one of your race to dwell so near to him, and there is no hole so small that he would not sniff your father out if he were there. No, if Thrain reached Erebor alone and entered it, by a secret way or by the front door, then he is certainly dead."

Thorin's shoulders sank and he stared into the fireplace, his brow furrowed in anger. "Even you cannot know for certain," he said. "My father possessed a power of his own, a secret token of our family. Thror gave it to him before he went to Moria, but my father did not pass it on to me. Who knows what that power might do, how long it might keep its bearer hidden from prying eyes or sniffing noses…"

Gandalf shook his head again, but he was not thinking of Thorin or of Thrain any longer. His gaze turned inward, looking back in time; he sank deep into long, forgotten memory and saw another dwarf, a pitiable and starving creature huddled against the iron bars of a cell beneath Dol Guldur. _'They took it from me'_, the nameless dwarf had said, and _'Please, give these to my son'_, as he pressed a tarnished key and torn map into Gandalf's hands. But the son had been nameless and the dwarf had died before Gandalf could learn more about him. Could it have been Thrain who died a prisoner of the Necromancer? Had that broken mind once belonged to the proud, High King of Durin's folk, the bearer of the Seventh Dwarf Ring?

The library door opened and Gandalf's thoughts were interrupted. He looked and then he smiled as Balin entered the room. The old dwarf bowed and greeted him eagerly.

"Ah, Tharkun," Balin said. "I was beginning to think you had forgotten us."

"Not forgotten," Gandalf said, "but I have many cares in this world and not all have to do with Dwarves."

Balin nodded, but Gandalf's words brought back Thorin's anger. "What other cares you have, I care nothing for them. I have answered your questions. Now, what help do you have to offer _me_? That is why we are here. I know that you did not come at the head of any army, and I can think of little else that would be of use against a dragon."

Gandalf sighed. "No, I have no army, and if I had, it would be of better use elsewhere. And in any case, what would you do with an army if you had one? Smaug is ancient and powerful; he has lain long, gathering his strength and biding his time just as you have, and the long years do not wear him down as they do mortal Men and Dwarves."

Thorin sneered at him. "I am not one of your pet humans, aged and decrepit. Dwarves older than I have swung their axes in battle and been victorious."

"You think that you can face the dragon head on?" Gandalf was growing impatient. "Then you have no need of me. But before I go, tell me, where are these hardened warriors that you mean to lead? Where are your armies, King Oakenshield?"

Thorin sank back in his chair with sullen frown. "They will come. I have called them and they will come. My cousin Dain will not forsake me. Two thousand, at least, I can expect from him, but they need not march all the way to Ered Luin to be counted."

"They will not come," Gandalf said, trying to be gentle, but his thoughts were on Dol Guldur and the news that had only recently reached him. Darkness was spreading beneath the boughs of the Greenwood, evil creatures menaced the Wilderlands and the passes through the mountains were becoming less and less safe even for large wagon trains. If Thorin waited for his armies to com that way, he would wait long indeed.

"They will not come or not enough will come," Gandalf insisted. "There are not enough dwarves left in the world to face a dragon of Smaug's strength and size; he is crafty and quick. Even if there were ten times as many Dwarves and they were ten times as strong, he would hear rumor of your coming long before you reached him. He will set upon you before you have time to gather together."

Thorin shook his head. He pointed down at the map. "You speak as if I would not have given thought to this already," he said. "We will take our wagons a dozen at a time down the Greenway. In Dunland we will shelter before passing through the gap. Then, keeping behind the foothills of the White Mountains, we will make for the river, crossing below the Greenwood. From there, we go north and form our ranks upon the eastern shore of Celduin. Dain and his dwarves might join us there and together we will march upon the mountain. We will be camped upon Smaug's doorstep before he knows anything about it, and if there is any rumor to hear it will be of merchant dwarves on a journey of visit and trade, nothing more."

Thorin smiled at his plan as he had outlined it, but Gandalf laughed at him. "Nothing more!" he said. "You think that Smaug would dismiss rumor of a great assembly of Dwarves heading his way as nothing more than that? And you make the journey sound so simple, but I promise you, there are other and greater dangers along the road you have chosen! You will attract the eye of every enemy of Dwarves, not to mention the other Kings who rule the lands that you must cross. They will not be eager to let a company of a thousand armed soldiers camp upon their lands."

"Other Kings!" Thorin leaped to his feet, his rage nearly boiled over. "Other Kings did nothing to help my people in our hour of need! They will do nothing now to hinder me." He regretted confiding in the wizard at all and was ready to throw him out, but Balin spoke up first.

"Perhaps Gandalf is right," he said gently. "It is a long road to walk with only our hope that no news will reach Smaug before we do. And we do not yet know how many dwarves will join us on the way. It has been months since you sent your messengers toward the Iron Hills. How many have returned, Thorin? I have not had time to ask, what answer have you had?"

Thorin sat down again. "I have had no answer," he admitted.

"Then that _is_ your answer," Gandalf said. "Dain will not come. He is wiser than you and will see that it is folly to face the dragon head-on. His folk still hold in their hearts the memory of the destruction of the Dwarf Halls of Ered Mithrin."

"You speak of other Kings, Gandalf" Balin said carefully. "What of the Elvenking? Surely he cannot be over fond of his new neighbor…?"

Thorin scowled, and Gandalf shook his head. They both knew how likely it was for King Thranduil to risk his elven host against the dragon, and even if he were willing, Thorin would never ask for aid from that quarter.

Thorin clenched his hand into a fist. "If this is all the aid you offer me, Tharkun, to council caution and cowardice, then go. Leave my halls! Too long have I listened to naysayers and those who would tell me to delay. Be gone, wizard, and take your craven council elsewhere!"

"Thorin, please!" For the second time that night, Balin watched as his cousin cast from their halls a guest who did not deserve his anger.

"Caution and cowardice are not the same thing," Gandalf said sternly. "Your grandfather understood this, even if you do not. And it is a wise man who listens to those who do not agree with him."

Thorin crossed his arms and turned his back, but Gandalf did not leave yet.

"King you may be, Thorin Oakenshiled, but a king in exile. You have no armies to command, and if you have spent all your time planning battle strategies and counting spears and axes, then your quest will certainly fail, with or without my help. But I do not advise you to abandon your oath, only to be wise in the actions that you take."

Thorin did not speak nor did he turn around. Gandalf sighed and stood up to go, but he was reluctant to leave without some agreement. He had begun to suspect that this stubborn dwarf's quest might indeed prove to be a part of the larger doings of the world. The memory of the nameless prisoner of Dol Guldur refused to leave him, and knowing that Thrain had worn one of the Seven suggested that there was more at work here than chance.

"Be angry with me if you will, Thorin, but one thing I will say: you have convinced me that the dragon must be dealt with, and soon. I have not given up on you yet, and I do not council you to wait long. I have another task that presses me before I will be free to turn all my thoughts on you. I must go south to the Havens, but as I walk, I will consider what you have said. I do not doubt that I will have a plan for you when I return, and a better one than this. Farewell."

With that, Gandalf took his hat and staff and left the library. Balin looked to his cousin, but Thorin had his back to him and was leaning against the mantle, staring into the fire. He would stand that way for half an hour at least, Balin knew, and so he hurried after the wizard instead.

He caught up to Gandalf in the passage outside the Great Hall just as the wizard was looking around for a guide, and Balin offered his service. They started toward the front door.

"His pride will be his downfall," Gandalf muttered.

"He is only anxious," Balin said. "There are other matters, family matters, on his mind tonight. In the morning, he will look upon your council with more welcoming eyes."

"I hope so." They had reached the front door and Gandalf stood looking out across the shallow valley toward the dark horizon. He thought of The Shire and his long-wished for rest. That, too, would have to wait. "I will be gone four weeks," he told Balin, "and not a day longer."

"I suppose it would do no good to ask, what business you have with the Elves of the Havens…?"

A dark look passed over Gandalf's face and he shook his head.

"Well, good journey to you, then," Balin said, "and good luck. I hope we will have a warmer welcome waiting for you when you return."

"As do I," Gandalf agreed.

He had to shake the sleeping gatekeeper awake so that the bleary-eyed dwarf might open the gates to let him through. One last time, Gandalf looked toward The Shire with regret, and then turned his feet south toward Mithlond. Cirdan would have good food and good advice that would revive him, but it was not the gentle balm of the hobbit folk. The Elf Lord had not left his havens for three hundred years or more, but Gandalf hoped that by carrying his words to the White Council he might finally persuade them to deal with Dol Guldur. Thorin Oakenshield was an unreliable - and unwitting - ally in the struggle that Gandalf saw ahead of them, but there was no time to choose a better.

.

Kili stood in the dark, holding his breath and listening as intently as he could to the passages around him. There was no good reason for any other dwarf to be down so deep among the store rooms, but that only meant that if _he_ were seen there, he would have many difficult questions to answer. Kili had no reason to be down here either – no reason that he could give.

The lowest storerooms had long ago been emptied of their winter stock, and they would not be opened up again until the autumn harvest was brought in at the end of the year. Kili had not even had to pick the lock to get into the room where he had hidden Betta's gold behind an old apple barrel and beneath a mound of half-rotten burlap sacks. He was tempted to lock the door behind him, but a locked door down here would raise more suspicion, and it may well be Fili who came to retrieve the gold. His brother was not as good at lock-picking as Kili was.

Satisfied that he heard no distant footsteps, Kili started up the passage walking as quickly as he could. He carried no torch, the better not to be seen, but he trailed his right hand along the narrow ledge that was cut into the wall. A series of bumps and ridges marked each hall, door and crossing within the Dwarfhome. They would have been almost invisible even in full torchlight, but every dwarf in Ered Luin knew them and could read them by touch.

Kili hardly needed the markings to tell him where he was. He and his brother had gone on many secret adventures down in these lowest levels when they were young lads. That was important: that he had choosen a hiding place that his brother would know as well as himself. They might speak of it in guarded terms so that even if they were overheard, they would not be understood.

At each winding stair or intersecting hall, Kili stopped to listen, but even underground there was a time to sleep and a time to wake, and nearly every dwarf in the mountain would be sleeping now. Eventually, he was far enough away from the hiding place, that Kili finally allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relieve and to smile at his own cleverness. No one would find Betta's gold where he had stashed it, not even crafty Gloin who could smell out a gold piece buried in a bin of coal. He…

Kili stopped short. Ahead of him, he saw a light. It grew brighter as it drew nearer, coming around the corner and he looked for a cross hall or doorway to duck and hide behind, but the hallway was long and straight for many yards behind him. He would be found out before he could hide.

With no other choice, he straightened his shoulders, raised his chin and walked forward, hoping that he did not look as guilty as he felt.

Kili recognized Frei before she knew he was there. He had had warning of her coming, but to her eyes, he appeared suddenly out of the shadows, and so lost in thought was she that upon seeing him she started back in surprise and cried out, "Careful there!" Her hand going to her waist.

He held up his hands, and she looked at him more closely. "Kili? What are you doing down here, sneaking about in soft shoes and carrying no light?" She eyed his boots suspiciously.

"They are no softer than any other shoe I wear," he lied. "I wished for a quiet place to think, and this place is often as good as any for such things." That was closer to the truth.

"Hm…" Frei frowned at him. No one would have been surprised to meet Fili wandering down some dark hallway in the middle of the night. Nor would they have wondered at the frown on his face or thought it strange for him to have so many thoughts in his head that he could not hear the voices calling out to him, but Kili was not his brother. It was well known that he did little by way of thinking and more by way of doing.

He said nothing, and that only deepened Frei's suspicion. "I suppose that Fili has you on some secret errand," she said, seeing Kili's anxious face. "Do not fear. I will not ask you what it is. I have no desire to be drawn any deeper into your family troubles. It is bad enough that my husband has been ensnared by you…"

"I set no snares," Kili protested. "And Dwalin has had nothing to do with it."

"Ha! No, not you, but your uncle would drag us all east with him if he could manage it," she said, and Kili stared at her in confusion. His thoughts were on his brother and Betta, and he expected Frei to be thinking the same. She was not. "Do not pretend that you do not understand me. Though Thorin has yet to say who he will take or which way he means to go, I know where his road will end. Do not forget that Dis was my friend. She spoke too often of her fears for her brother and his quest."

"Thorin made no secret of his plans for Erebor," Kili stammered. "No secret among Dwarves, anyway."

"Perhaps not," Frei said, "but he does not tell us _how_ he will go. Will it be with an army marching openly over the mountains, or will he send us in disguise, in scattered companies creeping along like mice? Whichever it is, I will not be left behind. Those with sense must look after those without it, and Dwalin would follow his cousin off a cliff if Thorin asked him to go." She frowned and her gaze grew distant. "But it will not be an army, will it? We have no armies left."

"I do not know," Kili said weakly. He did not know what to say to her. Thorin had not kept his plans _intentionally_ secret from his people, but neither had he announced them in any great detail. Kili had been away for many weeks with his brother, and he had not heard all the rumors that had grown from his uncle's strange behavior. He could not silence Frei's speculation; he did not know his uncle's plans, how they would enter Erebor what they would do with the dragon once they got there.

Frei looked hard at him. "Keep your secrets, then," she said angrily. "It is the best for you, I do not doubt, but I have heard your uncle mutter under his breath. He counts dwarves by the thousands, and his allies upon both his hands. He wonders whether the other Families will aid him as they aided his father after Thror was killed."

Kili's eyes widened. He could not help himself. He knew that Thorin was making military plans and guessed that he would have sent word to Dain who dwelt so near to The Mountain; only a fool would refuse to ask for _his_ help, but it had never entered his mind – nor Fili's either, he guessed – that Thorin would be proud enough to call upon the other six Houses. They had fought the Great War to avenge the death of Thror, certainly, but would they fight the dragon? That loss was long ago, and they had sent no word that Kili knew of.

"It is true, then…" Frei said, seeing his surprise and imagining that her guess had hit near to the mark.

"I did not say that it was," Kili said quickly. "I seldom know what is in my uncle's mind. He has yet to share his plans for this with me, or with anyone else, I think, but I do know that Thorin would not take any dwarf to The Mountain who did not wish to go."

"You are growing up well, lad," Frei said, and it was a compliment to him in spite of her bitter words. "You are old enough to use your head. Thorin will take no dwarf against his will, this is true, but what dwarf in this mountain would refuse? How many of your own family followed Thrain to their deaths? How many of mine?" She sighed.

"Well, I will tell you this," Frei went on, "and I hope you tell your uncle, and that he listens to you: If thorin asks for aid from the other houses, they will send none. Dwalin is convinced that Dain will come, and that he might even rouse some of his friends from among the Broadbeams, but I am not so certain. I do know that none from the east will answer his call. Already, they whisper amongst themselves, 'How many times must we rescue the fallen sons of Durin? Can their kings not manage their own affairs?'"

"When have you spoken to the other houses?" Kili asked.

Frei smiled. "You think that I would forsake my own kin now that I live among yours?" She shook her head. "No. They will sooner forsake me. Do you not wonder why the other houses of the Dwarves do not mingle with the descendants of Durin? Especially with Thror's sons? Take care, Kili, and I hope that whatever darkness lies upon your family will pass you by."

With that, Frei stepped around him and, taking her lantern with her, she walked swiftly down the passage and was gone. Kili found himself once more left in darkness. He was at first too stunned to answer to the false accusations that she had laid upon his family and, now that she was gone, he wondered whether they were indeed false. If she were not a Dwarf, or if she had been a Dwarf-man, he might have challenged her for the insult, but even there, he was not sure. In all their speculation, neither Kili nor Fili had imagined that Thorin would summon the other six Houses. The Stonefoots and Blacklocks, the Stiffbeards and Ironfists, the Broadbeams and Firebeards, they seldom mingled with the Longbeards of the west. As far as Kili knew, Frei and Nan alone had journeyed beyond Hithaeglir.

But what reason would they have to come west at all, Kili told himself. There was little to trade and less to mine in the broken Blue Mountains, and Moria could not be reclaimed. Just because he had never heard of the six Houses trading with the seventh did not mean that it was not done. Thror must have had dealings with them when he dwelt at Erebor.

For the first time that he could remember, Kili wondered how Frei spoke with her Blacklock kin since coming to Ered Luin. Many hundreds of leagues lay between the Blue Mountains and the Red, and if no trade passed between them, no messengers would, either.

As a lad, he had admired the warrior dwarf-woman and had often named her among the greatest heroes of the old wars. He admired her strange tattoos, and she had more skill with a sword than most dwarves had with an axe. And yet, as he had grown up and grown older, he began to feel anxious around her. He imagined that behind her bright eyes and quick laugh she was not as happy at Ered Luin as she pretended to be. More than one dwarf had accused her of mistrusting the Longbeards, a rumor that was not completely silenced by the fact that she had married one of them.

Kili had no doubt that Frei loved her husband, but what did she think when she looked at the rest of them with those angled eyes? She had looked upon the far eastern shores and seen more of Middle-earth than Kili. More than Betta, even.

Feeling sick in his heart and uncertain of himself, Kili continued up the passage and made his way back to the rooms that he shared with his brother. He walked in darkness until he reached the hall where a lamp was lit outside their door. He opened it quietly and entered.

Fili's own lamp was lit upon the low table between their two beds, and he lay in his bed still dressed and with one arm thrown up over his eyes. Kili assumed that he was asleep, but almost as soon as he had shut the door, Fili was on his feet and hurrying to his brother's side.

"You have hidden it, then?" he asked, seeing that Kili's hands were empty. "Where? It is in a safe place?"

"No one will find it down there," Kili assured him, and quickly described where he had hidden Betta's gold. "No one will be in those rooms until the end of the year, and we shall have made our arrangements long before then."

"Good. That is good," Fili said, nodding. "I have been thinking about it, and we might easily trade all that we have of the raw gold for stamped coin. It should only take a week or two. Thorin will be wanting gold to buy supplies and hire wagons for the journey, and it is my task to look over the bookkeeping. I might easily move a few numbers from one column to the next without changing the total. We are not _taking_ any gold, after all, only trading it."

Fili hesitated even as he spoke. They were not taking, but still he did not like even the smallest deceit used against his own folk. He was walking a narrow ledge with his uncle already, and he wished that Thorin would have paid Betta what she had earned so that none of this trickery was necessary. If they had more time, he might have melted down their gold and stamped the coins himself.

"We should also try to trade as many gold coins as we can for silver and copper pennies," Kili said.

"What for? The gold will be hard enough to get…" Fili shook his head.

"Because gold coins get noticed," Kili reminded him. "Give me some credit for thinking ahead, brother. The town is not large, and our folk are often down there for trade. Someone is bound to wonder why Betta is suddenly spending Dwarven gold, and word will get back to Thorin. Those coins may not be missed from the treasury, but they are still traceable. Poverty is the best protection against thieves, I heard an old woman say once and, though I think that a strong arm and an axe is better, for those without weapons, the _appearance_ of poverty will do just as well."

Fili nodded and sank down heavily onto the edge of his bed. "You are right," he said, "but that will take much longer and we must be careful about it… or, _you_ must be careful. Thorin has given orders that I am not allowed to set foot outside this mountain, and Betta cannot enter it. He knows that I mean to see her again…"

Kili sighed and sat down across from his brother. "You spoke with him then?"

"He is angry with me, but you have had more luck. Thorin believes that you, too, have fallen under Betta's spell, but he thinks you not so far gone. He may well decide to take you to Erebor to get you out of the reach of her bad influence… and mine."

"I will not go without my brother," Kili said. He kicked off his shoes and lay back on his bed. "All our adventures and we end up back in the same place, arguing over who goes to Erebor and who stays home." He laughed and looked at his unhappy brother. "Do not worry, Fili. How many times has Thorin declared that I must not go to town, and how many times have I slipped past his guard and had my fun anyway? You will see Betta again, and you and I both shall see Erebor one day. I know that we will."

Fili was not convinced, but he could not resist his brother's laughter and soon he was smiling, too. "Where there is life, there is hope, eh, brother?" he said.

"One problem at a time," Kili agreed. "And in one of our troubles, at least, I think that we might rely on Nan and her husband. Gilon trades freely with both Men and Dwarves – even if the Dwarves will not admit to it – and no one would suspect him of ill-getting his gains if he should find himself holding a few extra coins."

Fili sighed and then he smiled. "What would I do without you, brother? Nothing ever dampens your mood."

Kili smiled, but he was not as content as he pretended to be. He was still troubled by Frei's words, and by Fili's suggestion that Thorin might decide to take one brother and not the other. They said little else that night. They dressed for sleep and tucked themselves under their blankets, sinking into the comfort of familiar beds after so many weeks away. Not even Kili's troubled thoughts could keep him long awake after Fili put out the lamp. He was tired and they were both soon fast asleep.

.

Far away in a lonely cabin at the bottom of a hill, Gilon had lain a mattress on the floor for Betta near the fireplace in the long, front room. There were three smaller rooms along the back wall of the cabin, and one of those would be fit up as a bedroom for her, Nan promised, but for now, it was too full of tools and cloth, food stuff and spare wood. In the morning, they would clean it out and Gilon would put back together the frame that had been his mother's bed.

Both Nan and Gilon were kind to her and said nothing of the trouble that she had put them to. Even so, a mattress on the floor was more than Betta had expected to be given; to have a room to call her own and proper bed would be a luxury she had almost forgotten.

She was warm and safe within four walls, but Betta could not sleep. Long after her hosts had gone to their rest, she lay awake, staring up at the ceiling. The room was dark save for the glow of the embers and the sliver of silver moonlight that slipped through the curtains' seams. It had been so long since she had had a roof over her head that the sounds were strangely muffled in her ears.

After turning fitfully for over an hour, she sat up and pushed back her knotted hair. Her maimed arm did not trouble her; Nan had fixed a broth of herbs for the pain. It was something else that kept her from sleep.

Quietly, Betta took up her pack and reached inside, past the scraps of cloth and broken leather, past her spare blanket to the very bottom. She drew out the old silver box and looked at it in the dim light.

How many times had she stared at that box in Dwarf forges and the inns of Men, from cold caves to warm hillsides? A piece of frayed string tied the lid to the base, and the silver was tarnished and darker than it had been so many weeks ago before Fili broke the seal and revealed the torn map and pearl. The pearl was gone, dropped into the sea many hundreds of leagues north of Ered Luin, and the map was worthless now. No treasure lay at the end of it.

Her journey was over. What was she to do now? She wondered.

Fili did not understand. How could he? He was a prince. He had his family and his uncle's quest ahead of him. He had never had to wonder what was his place in the world.

The room was cold, and Betta tucked herself back under the blankets, holding the box tight in her left hand. Nan had sworn to take over the treatment of Betta's maimed arm, which had been sorely neglected in recent days. She had said that Betta might learn herb lore as well and help the old dwarf-woman at her trade. That would be something, a first step toward earning her own keep, Betta thought, but she hoped for more, for a life of her own that she could be proud of.

She closed her eyes and hoped that Fili was well. She had not given him up, but wherever he was, at least he was home. How long until Betta could say the same for herself?


	7. Ch7: Kili's Struggle

**Middle-earth, and all who dwell within it, belongs to Tolkien. I am grateful to him for growing this beautiful garden in which our imaginations can play. Please review!**

* * *

Kili stood in the low archway between the armory and the training hall, his face turned toward two young dwarves who were beating bruises into each other with dull-bladed axes, barely using their dented shields. Fror hovered nearby, doing his best to prevent the lads from doing any permanent damage – to the weapons, anyway; while Dwalin stood against the wall, laughing at the three of them. Kili smiled, too, but he had little interest in the mock battle. He faced it, but his eyes were on Fror.

The old dwarf had been specially selected by Thorin to keep an eye on his youngest nephew and, for three days, he had done his job all too well. Kili hardly found time in the evenings between dinner and sleep to slip away from watchful eyes and go down to the store room to collect his pocket full of raw gold. Last night, he had been nearly caught as he returned from the lower levels and he could not count on his luck forever.

Today was the first day that old Fror had looked away from his charge for more than a moment, and then only because he feared for the safety of his training gear. The two lads were barely competent, but they were eager and determined to practice with iron weapons instead of wood. Undoubtedly, Fror thought himself safe to turn his back on Kili in this hall. There was only one door and, though it was wide open and unguarded, it was a long ways away and Fror would see him before he could reach it.

Almost as if he read his thoughts, Fror clear his throat, and Kili realized that the old dwarf was staring straight at him. He had, of course, been staring hard at the far door, calculating his chances. Fror smiled and shook his head, but Kili turned his eyes up to the high, vaulted ceiling, pretending not to notice. It grated on him to be held prisoner within his own home. _He_ was not the one who had angered their uncle, and Fror took too great a pleasure in his increased authority over the brothers.

Kili hid his smile and put his hand in his pocket. Fror might think that he had the upper hand now, but he did not know that Kili had long ago fashioned a copy of the key to the broad iron door that led out of the armory itself. That door was behind him, hidden on the other side of the archway, and it led straight back to a forge that was only ever used to sharpen or mend the weapons for the training hall. The door was kept locked, but years ago, he had managed to get hold of the master key. His goal then had been to get _inside_ the hall, to blacken the handles of the training axes and swords so that the dwarves who handled them got soot on their hands, their faces, and everything else that they touched. Afterwards, once Thorin had discovered who had been responsible, Kili had spent two weeks with a rag in his hand and a bucket at his feet, wiping the soot from dozens of weapons and repenting of his prank. But the key had never been discovered. It was assumed that he had slipped in through the training hall when no one was looking and no one thought to search him.

Today, that same key would let Kili _out_ of the armory. Fror was distracted, and the few other dwarves in the hall had looked away, so Kili stepped backwards into the shadows behind the arch. All he needed was the right moment, and then…

"Kili! Dwalin! Stop your laughter and be useful!" Fror shouted. Kili froze, but the old dwarf had not caught him in his escape; he only wanted something to occupy the incorrigible youths. "Come now, show these dwarflings the proper way to swing an axe," Fror called.

Kili sighed and stepped back into the training hall. Dwalin was already striding forward, eager to get his hands on a weapon, even if it _was_ made of wood. The young dwarves stopped their struggle and backed away. Dwalin was a full head and shoulders taller than they were, though he was only a head taller that Kili who was more reluctant than his cousin to do battle. He looked back toward the armory with regret, but he could not refuse without arousing Fror's suspicion.

Though he would rather have held a bow, Kili chose a single-bladed axe from the rack; Dwalin, of course, chose his favorite war hammer. Fror had good reason to protect his training weapons better than he protected his trainees; they were solidly built, but light in the hand and well-balanced. The handles were strong iron but on most the heads and blades had been replaced or faced with the softer wood, yet in the right hands, they could still break bone, and Kili could attest to the pain of a blow from the flat of the hammer. The younger dwarves used weapons made entirely of wood, light enough to allow them to stop their swings or turn them aside and do less injury to their opponent… not that the lads Fror was training today had done either. Kili remembered his own youth spent beating his brother full of bruises while Fili had done the same to him, but they always laughed about it together afterwards.

Hefting the training axe in his hand, Kili raised an eyebrow at the much larger hammer that Dwalin held. The head was faced with wood, but the rest was solid iron.

"You are planning to teach them how to flatten their friends, cousin?" he asked.

Dwalin smiled sheepishly. "You think that I should go easy on you, lad?" he said, and put down the large hammer. He took up a smaller size, this one with a head carved entirely of wood.

"I think that my uncle has heaped my shoulders high with chores to do this week," Kili answered, "and that he would not be glad to hear that you have left me unable to finish them."

Dwalin nodded and looked at Kili with sympathy. He was one of the few who knew exactly why Thorin was angry with his nephews, but he had had an earful from Balin about keeping his mouth shut. Not that he would have spoken of what he had seen and heard in the Great Hall three nights before. The few who knew the full depth of Fili's shame had not spoken of it even to each other. To the rest of the mountain, it was only guessed at that there had been a falling out between Thorin and his heir over the human woman. Most thought that it was because Fili had broken the established law and brought her into the Dwarfhome. Few imagined that it could be more than that, and all agreed that it would blow over in time.

"Now, lad, we shall see if the cold north froze your arms as well as your wits," Dwalin said. He swung first, aiming his hammer at Kili's unguarded knees.

Caught by surprise, Kili jumped up into the air, stumbling backwards to avoid the blow. '_Keep your feet on the ground!'_ He heard his brother's voice shouting in his head. It was the one thing that he could never remember when he fought Fili sword to sword. And his brother never failed to take advantage, knocking him to the ground over and over, demanding, _'How do you expect to escape an orc's blade when you are hanging helpless in the air!?'_

_'__I would not need to escape it if I had my bow,'_ was Kili's inevitable answer as he lay on the ground with his brother laughing and striking at his ankles with the tip of his blade. Dwalin was more charitable, and he waited until Kili had found his balance before bearing down again.

"Had enough already, lad?" he asked.

"Not yet," Kili said, grinning. He swung his axe in his hand as he circled his cousin. There would be no opening, he knew; Dwalin was much too good a fighter for that, but he was also much larger than Kili was, and a two-handed hammer was harder to wield than a light axe.

They met again in the middle, each swinging his own weapon while the other ducked and danced out of the way. Kili could not help but think how much easier it would have been to fight with Fili at his back, but he had learned one thing in the cold mountains of Angmar: that he must sometimes rely only on his own strength and cleverness. Fili would not always be there to rescue him.

The two dwarves circled each other again, and Kili could see old Fror and the two trainees watching from the sidelines. He knew that Dwalin might have gone much harder on him than he did, but this was meant to be practice, a chance to display skill and technique to their young audience. There should be no question of winning, yet Kili found himself wanting a win. He was too afraid of their uncle to confront Thorin directly regarding his injustice to Betta, and for three days he had been held nearly helpless under Fror's watchful eyes, but here, at least, he might show some strength and strike a blow for Dis's sons.

With a cry, Kili leaped forward, throwing his shoulder into Dwalin on his weaker side. He was worn out, but had enough weight behind him that he drove his cousin off balance. Turning on his heel, he swung his axe into the back of Dwalin's leg and, to his amazement, the blow landed solidly with the flat of the blade striking just above the knee. Dwalin bellowed in surprise and indignation as he dropped to the floor, holding his thigh with one hand. If Kili had been using a proper axe against a proper enemy, he might have faced his blade outward and taken his opponent's leg clean off.

A little too eager to celebrate his victory, Kili stepped forward and reached out to touch his blade to Dwalin's neck, mimicking the killing blow. The next thing he knew, his cousin had wrapped his arm around both Kili's legs, knocking them out from under him and dropping him onto his back. And, with that, the battle was over. They both lay on the floor, laughing too hard to get up.

"Well, I hope that you two take your training more seriously than do these two fools," Fror muttered. He gave Kili a stern look before turning on the young dwarves who struggled to hide their own laughter behind their hands. Fror ordered them back to their blades.

Dwalin smiled at Kili behind Fror's back and nodded toward the armory. "Go on now," he whispered, "but you cannot hide from him forever in there."

Kili needed no further encouragement; he was on his feet and running out of the hall as quickly and quietly as he could go. The main door was still held against him, and he knew that Dwalin expected him to hide out behind the rows of hanging shields or duck into a corner to play some mischief upon Fror. His cousin thought that there was no other way out of the armory, but he did not know about the key.

"What will they think," Kili wondered, laughing to himself as he unlocked the heavy, iron door. The hinges were rusted but mercifully quiet as he eased it open and slipped through. "They will say that I have vanished."

He locked the door again behind him and set off at a swift jog down the passage. It would only be a few minutes before Fror realized that he was missing, but even if he guessed the means by which Kili had escaped, without his own key, the old dwarf would have to go around six rooms to get to the armory's forge, and by then Kili would be long gone.

He took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the curious looks of the few dwarves who saw him run past. He was heading for his own rooms and, once he reached that door, he darted inside and slammed it shut, pulling a heavy chest against it for safety. He leaned back against the wall, his breath coming quick, but he was still laughing.

Fror might beat his fists against that door until the iron swelled his knuckles like berries, but Kili would not answer him. It was the first time in three days that he had had a moment to himself to think, yet he knew that he had gotten off easy. For Fili, the hammer had come down hard. Kili might shirk his chores and tease Fror for his guard without worrying too much about it, but Fili have been given ten times the work in addition to his regular duties, and Fili was determined to prove himself to their uncle, to win back the favor that he had lost.

His brother was nearly sick with the struggle to appear perfect in Thorin's' eyes. His once ruddy cheeks had turned pale, and his eyes that used to be cheerful and bright – at least when he looked at Kili or Betta – were dull and lifeless, half lidded with dark circles hanging under them. He was exhausted, returning to their rooms too late to say more than good night before falling into bed, and yet he was still the first of them up the next morning so that he could leave early and get his work started.

It had been left up to Kili to make sure that they always had lumps of raw gold for Fili to pocket and trade during his rounds. His regular duties included keeping an eye on the mines and the miners down in the depths of the mountain, but while the brothers had been off having adventures in the north, Thorin had pushed to expand the mines, nearly doubling the length and breadth of the tunnels in only a few weeks. Anticipating the needs of an army, their uncle had hoped to increase Ered Luin's output of coal and raw ore. He hoped also, as always, that if they dug deeper, they might find some new vein of gold or silver, but there was little precious metal in those hills at that time and no new source to be found.

Fili's long days were spent walking the tunnels, up and down until his feet were swollen and he needed Kili's help to pull off his boots at night. If he had thought that the long walk through the snow-covered hills of Angmar had been hard, or the buried passages of the old Naug-home had been stifling, Fili learned better now. Each night, he returned, aching and exhausted, shaking his head and muttering under his breath: Thorin had grown the mines too quickly. The new walls were not firm and the bracings set too far apart. There was not enough time to build stone arches to support the weight of the mountain, but wooden beams must be brought in from outside and the expansion was meant to bring money _into_ the Dwarfhome, not send it out into the hands of Men. The Dwarves of Ered Luin had long ago cut all the good trees from this side of the mountain to feed their furnaces and build their early halls. The best wood came from the fields of the tall folk.

Today, Kili knew that his brother would be down in the mines again, though his presence there had little force with their uncle's anger upon him. Fili would pass through the forges, too, and even now might be standing in the refinery, dropping his lumps of raw gold onto the pile. He knew the weight of what he carried in his pockets and would take only that same weight in coin from the treasury later in the day. He might have taken coins from the mint, but freshly pressed gold would shine too brightly in Betta's hands.

It was a risk, going through so many steps when each one was a chance for someone to see or question them, but Kili knew that what Fili brought back at the end of each day was often less weight than what he had left behind. His brother refused to carry over the value of the coins, and if he put down even a fraction of an ounce less than the weight of a whole coin, he refused to take that coin and would not agree to take one more on the following day when the count came up light again.

They were losing out on this transaction, Kili knew, and though it undoubtedly eased Fili's guilt, he hoped that Betta would not suffer at the other end of it. He did not know what Fili thought. His brother refused to speak of her. He barely acknowledged Kili's words when he handed over the raw gold each morning and did not speak when he gave back coins at the end of each day. He would not talk of their adventures in the north and did not even look up when Kili said Betta's name. Was his brother indeed trying to forget their former guide? Certainly his sunken cheeks and dead eyes spoke of grief; was he grieving the woman who Thorin had declared was as good as dead to him?

Kili sighed and passed through the front room with their beds, entering the smaller of the two chambers beyond. He and his brother might have chosen to live anywhere in the mountain, but they needed little more than each other and had stayed in their childhood rooms, only expanding them a little with their own hands as they grew. One of the spare rooms was for weapons and armor, the brothers' own battle gear that they had yet to wear into actual battle; the other was for common items, their clothes and boots and a box of clasps for their hair and beards. A narrow shelf on one wall displayed the few toys that had survived their childhood, stone soldiers that their mother had carved for them and Fili's first wooden sword, split down the middle from a too eager thrust. Beside that shelf, the day after their return to Ered Luin, Kili had sunk two pegs into the stone and hung Betta's bow upon them. He took it down now and tested the string. The wood creaked under his hand; it was dry and needed tending.

Kili put back the bow. He could not believe that Fili would forget Betta in only a few days, and wasn't his brother still determined to pilfer the gold for her use? No, Fili might _say_ that it was best for them to move on, that they must obey Thorin's orders and never speak of her again, but if Fili did not think of her, then why was his behavior so strange? Both brothers had a secret, loose stone under their beds under which they would hide their treasures. Why did Fili insist that Kili keep Betta's gold coins under his? He had said, at the time, that Kili must keep them as he would be the one to eventually carry them out of the mountain, and – at the time – it had seemed reasonable enough.

Kili returned to the front room and eyed his brother's bed. Very reasonable, he thought, except that last night, after Fili had returned very late from his chores, Kili had been still awake in his bed and he had watched from under half-closed eyes as Fili removed the secret stone from under his bed and placed several secret somethings underneath.

This morning, Kili had kept careful watch while they dressed, but Fili guessed that he was observed and did not try to take out what he had hidden. It was possible that Fili had returned during the day while his brother was gone, but Kili felt sure that he would have had no chance, being kept as busy as he was. Whatever he had hidden must still be there.

He hesitated only a moment before deciding that Fili's right to secrecy lasted only as long as his health, and his health was failing fast. With curiosity weighing the argument on his side, Kili knelt down and thrust his hand under his brother's bed. He felt for the loose stone and lifted it up, pulling out the large bundle that was beneath it and sitting back on his heels.

He unwrapped the bundle and stared in surprise at what he had found. One of the green stones from Grahn's treasure chest was there, and several scraps of loose parchment folded together, but that was not what caught his eye. He held up to the lamplight a golden pendant half-formed. It had been scored in many places, the beginnings of a filigree design, and Kili recognized the notches along one side and a hook to hang the pendant on a fine chain. It was a gift for Betta, he had no doubt, but he was no goldsmith and could not yet guess what the finished product would be. For that, he unfolded the pages and looked over his brother's drawings.

A sketch had been made in charcoal pencil, rubbed out and redrawn many times over. The design was a fair mingling of Dwarvish knots and the Gondorian design that Kili recognized from Betta's inlaid mirror. She had told them that the mirror had been fashioned by her grandfather and gifted to her mother before it was passed on to her, but the curved lines of Fili's design formed a graceful tree growing up from the side of a mountain in such a way that its topmost branches formed the highest peaks of stone while the roots of the mountain itself became the roots of the tree.

Kili had not known that his brother had the skill to draw so delicate a design, and he might have imagined that Fili had ordered another dwarf to create it, but the perfect rows and columns along the side of the page, the measurements and calculated angles, were all written in the same deliberate hand that Fili used in his bookkeeping for Thorin. When his brother had found the time to work on this in only three days, Kili could not begin to guess. He put everything back where he had found it and replaced the stone, then sat down on his bed to puzzle out this new riddle.

It seemed clear enough that not all of Fili's late hours had been spent on Thorin's list of chores. And what was more, Kili knew that he had been right. Fili had not forgotten Betta or his love for her. This necklace was for her, made from the gold they had found in the north, and that also explained why Fili's delivery of coins from the treasury each night had been light. It was not healthy, this secret work and secret thought, but unless Thorin lessened his decree and took pity on his nephew, Kili feared that it would be himself and not Fili who delivered the pendant to Betta when it was finished.

No. He refused to let that happen. Fili was kept busy and watched every moment, but Kili was determined to find a way to slip his brother out of the mountain. Not today, certainly, and perhaps not for several days or weeks or more, but eventually Thorin's guard must falter. His eye would turn elsewhere and then…

Kili took the pouch of gold coins from under his bed. For now, he must be satisfied with making his own, much smaller delivery to Betta. He was well practiced at talking his way past the guards and Thorin had not ordered _him_ to stay within the mountain. He would make his way into town where he knew a friendly house with an innkeeper's wife who would be glad to trade a Dwarf coin or two for town money. He would have a pint at the pub and allow himself to be seen by dwarf eyes before making his way over the hill to Nan's cabin. The pint would allow him to trade another coin for small change and it would give him evidence if Thorin asked him where he had gone that day.

There would still be several gold coins in the pouch that Betta could not easily spend, but for that, he would trust to the cleverness of Nan and Gilon. He knew that they could keep her secret and would not reveal the source of their guest's sudden wealth.

Looking both ways before he left their rooms, Kili hurried toward a side door that he knew. He would slip out through the same south door in the Wall that he had long ago slipped Betta out of, and he looked forward to seeing his friend again.

* * *

**Yay, a new chapter! Please, pretty please, lovely new readers, REVIEW! I delight in your feedback and despise writing blind. If you liked something - or if you didn't - REVIEW!**

**Please :)**

**-Paint**


	8. Ch8: Another Love Story

**Middle-earth, and all who dwell within it, belongs to Tolkien. I am grateful to him for growing this beautiful garden in which our imaginations can play. Please review!**

* * *

Betta scowled at the needle and thread in her hand. She knew that she looked like a petulant child; Nan had told her so moments ago as she left the cabin. What did it matter how she looked, Betta thought bitterly, when there was no one to see her who cared? Her hand shook with anger and frustration as she struggled once more to guide the needle through the linen handkerchief.

"Ouch!"

How she had managed to stick her finger when she had only one hand in use was beyond her. She cast aside the embroidery ring (carefully, as she had once already found a way to stitch her skirt to the ring). She stared at the small drop of blood that stained her skin and sighed. Was this what she had come to, a broken woman, unable to do even the slightest task without help? What of her bow and knife? What had become of the woman who had slayed the snow-troll?

It was not that she _could not_ do the task that Nan had set her to, she insisted to herself. She had learned to sew like any other woman of Gondor and, after many trials and just as many errors, she had figured out how to hold the embroidery ring between her right arm and knee so that she might even sew one-handed. She had figured out, much to Nan's chagrin, that she might stick the sewing needle into the cushioned arm of her chair so that it stood upright while she ran the thread through the eye. She did not need help to do that!

No, Betta thought, it was not that she _could not_ embroider the squared handkerchief that Nan had given her, but that she _would not_. Not since the first day that she had taken her father's bow without his permission and climbed into the high hills above Losarnach to hunt the wild game had she willingly consented to do women's work. She might wield the needle out of necessity, to mend her torn clothes or to stich a net for her snares, but not for this. What use was there in embroidery? A fancy hem did not resist the mud any more than did a plain one, and there was no design among Men or Dwarves that would cause a linen cloth to wipe a spill or bind a wound better than it already did. What was the use in this?

She sighed and looked down at the abrupt end of her right arm. It was still capped with seal-skin, and she tightened the strap that bound the wrapping to her arm. Even Nan had been forced to admit that Elm had done good work there. And, Betta had to admit, Nan was right, and the sewing had done her some good. It taught her to steady her left hand, and it strengthened her left arm for the finer work that it was not used to doing. She no longer had a right hand to share the load, and her left must bear all the burden.

The injury had hardly troubled her while she travelled with Dwarves in Gloin's caravan. She had had other, more pressing, worries on her mind, and Fili and Kili had been there; but here, in Nan's cabin, the loss of her hand was a constant vexation to Betta. Every task she attempted was hindered by it. At first, Nan had allowed her to help with harder work: carrying wood and digging in the garden behind the house, but on the morning of the second day, Betta had hooked the handle of a too-heavy basket of roots over her right arm and carried it into the kitchen, not setting the basket down even when she felt a pain in her arm. Nan had unwrapped her bandages to find that the weight of the basket had torn open one of Betta's stitches to split and the not-yet-healed wound was bleeding freely again.

She had ordered Betta back to sewing and sitting again and refused to let her lift anything heavier than a glass of water. She swore that Betta would neither lift nor carry for three days, or until the wound had healed, whichever came the latest.

It did not good to argue with the dwarf-woman. Nan was adamant and Betta's complaints fell upon deaf ears, and now she sat beside the fire like an old woman, ruminating on the unfairness of the world. What good was an arm if it was too weak to be used? Better to have the whole limb cut off and be done with it, she thought angrily.

Betta left her chair and went to the window. She regretted her sharp words to Nan – the dwarf-woman had been nothing but kind to her, and she meant well enough – but she wished for the freedom she once had to wander the woods alone. The sun was bright and to the south-west, she could see the rising slopes of the Ered Luin, dark blue behind the green crest of the hill, but she did not look long at them. There had been no sight or sound from that quarter, no visit from Fili or his brother and no message sent. Neither Nan nor Gilon could give any news of what went on inside the mountain.

Unwilling to resign herself to the needle again, Betta took one of Nan's thick shawls down from its peg and pulled on Nan's heavy boots. Her own took too many laces and buckles to fasten for her to put them on easily with one hand. Betta left the cabin and left her bitter thoughts behind.

The cold air hit her hard in the face as soon as she opened the door. As she crossed the yard, it pulled at her skirt in a way that she did not like. Her old clothes, shirt and trousers, had been so patched-up and stained by her three years of wandering that Nan had taken them all away and left her own spare clothes in their place. This meant that she must wear a skirt that, even with the hem let down as far as it would go, stopped too high above her ankles. Nan was also much wider about the waist that Betta , and it took a long length of belt to keep all that cloth in place. Betta could not help but imagine how much harder her days in the north would have been if she had been forced to battle orcs and wolves as well as a skirt!

Slowly, Betta picked her way through the mud in the yard. Gilon's farmland sat between the rise of two steep hills and, though the cabin and barn had been built upon raised earth, the flat land between them sank down into the mud and was soaked with the melting snow. Betta moved carefully, taking care not to be seen by Nan, who was working in the garden behind the house. She still thought it strange to be harvesting vegetables in springtime when the ground was half-frozen, but Nan planted her winter carrots, beets and garlic in autumn and now that it was April, they must be dug up. The dwarf-woman had begun to teach Betta her herb-lore, too, though they had to make do with dried leaves and stems until winter released its grip and allowed the new greenery to grow.

Almost as soon as she left the cabin, Betta heard the ringing of Gilon's hammer coming from behind the barn. She followed the sound, and a blast of heat welcomed her into the forge. Leaving Nan's shawl beside the door, she stepped into the narrow stall between the work room and the lower floor where Gilon's anvil stood before the hot forge fires. The stall was for any horse or other animal who might need new shoes fitted, and it was the closest Betta could get without being ordered back. She stood there often, watching Gilon work. Today, he was beating into shape a long, rough iron blade. It was part of a plough, but in its present condition, she could not say what part.

Gilon wore thick, leather gloves to protect his hands, and the lower half of his face was covered with a leather apron to guard his beard from errant sparks. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up at the stall. He was not surprised to see Betta there. He winked at her and then returned to his work. She had been staying with them only a few days, but already she had taken to hiding out from her unwanted chores by slipping into the forge. Watching him work reminded her of Fili and Kili and how they had moved about the dwarf forge up in the mountains; she felt more useful bringing hammers and chisels to Gilon than she did wiping plates and sweeping floors with Nan.

After a few more blows, Gilon put aside his hammer and took off his mask. "You've escaped my wife again," he said, shaking his head, but his blue eyes were cheerful. "Well, hand me those tongs and stay well back from here."

Betta took the tool from the rack and handed it over the railing to him. She watched as he lifted up the hot, iron blade and thrust it back into the coolest part of the fire. She did not understand half of what he did and she wished to learn, but she had been called a child once already today and pestering Gilon with questions would only confirm that she deserved the name.

Seeming to guess both parts of her mind, Gilon answered her question without waiting to be asked. "It is a coulter," he said, "though I dare say you have seen one before."

"I have not seen one that looks like that," she said. "It is very large and strangely curved."

"Because the ground here is so hard," he explained. "And we plant our crops deep in spring. With the weight of a good ox to draw this before him, a farmer might cut through stone." He smiled. "But stone is still softer than the frozen ground, and the farmer who ordered a new blade from me should have known better than to try to break ground in early March.

"More work for you, then," Betta said.

"Indeed," he nodded, but his face was grim, "and I will take all the work that I am given, for I am not given much these days."

The windows of the forge looked north and east, and none showed the mountains to the west, but the shadow of Ered Luin hung over the whole of the farm. "Why be a blacksmith so near to so many dwarves?" Betta asked. "This place is not like Dunland where the Men and Dwarves live apart and do not willingly work with each other."

Gilon leaned his weight against the anvil. He crossed his arms and looked at her thoughtfully. "You have not been long in this land, and your loyalties lie in the west, I suppose," he said. "I of all Men cannot blame you for that, but although my family has farmed in these hills for many generations, it has only recently become our means for survival. Do your people have two names in Gondor?"

Betta shrugged. "Some do," she said. "My family did not. We had no need."

"Well, here, we do, though they are little used in a town where everyone knows everyone else. I am Gilon Smith, not Gilon Gardner or Gilon Farmer, and a smith I am. My grandfather was counted among the greatest blacksmiths this side of the Shire, but when he swung his hammer, there were only a few dwarves in the mountains, a wary bunch of vagabonds who did not take work from the tall folk - though they say that there used to be many more Dwarves of the bolder sort who lived there in ages past."

Gilon sat down upon the anvil, groaning as he forced his stiff, right knee to bend. "I was not yet born when Thrain's company came west over the mountains and resettled the Ered Luin. In my father's time, there was work enough for him, but for me, there is less and less each year. Even last summer, I might have counted on earning enough coin to feed my wife and myself, but overwinter, Thorin grew eager for gold. His dwarves now take in work that they would not otherwise have accepted, and his forges run hotter than mine. Since the new year began, I have had work only from a few farmers, Men who I would rather have refused for they do not trust dwarves and speak of my wife with many cruel words when they think I cannot not hear them."

He sighed. "But a man must work, and Nan cannot earn all our keep with her herbs. The land is not kind to those who are unfortunate enough to grow old."

Betta looked at him, searching his face. True, there were grey whiskers in his beard, but until today, she had not believed that he had seen above fifty years of life. Then again, she had grown used to gauging the passage of years against a Dwarf's long lifespan. Fili was more than eighty years old, but he fought with the vigor of a Man of twenty-five. Kili, too, was more than twice Betta's age, but she could not help seeing him as a lad younger than she.

"I wish that I could do something to help you," she said, looking down at her maimed arm. She could do little enough to help herself.

But Gilon shook his head. "You have given my wife something to do besides her work," he said. "That is good help. She wishes for a child, sometimes, I think, but she said that it would have been a curse to any child we had together. I could not have given her one even if I had met her twenty years before." He frowned, and then he laughed out loud. "I would have been a child myself!"

Betta did not laugh. If Gilon was as old as he claimed, then Nan still appeared quite young, and Betta wondered whether she would be so cheerful when the time came for her to whither while Fili remained strong and healthy. Would he love her as a grey-haired old woman or would he wish that he had married a dwarf-woman who might age as slowly as he did?

"How did you meet Nan?" Betta asked, hoping to draw her thoughts away from future grief. "Frei told me they came west together, and I did not think that dwarf-women mix much with the other races."

"They mix more often than you think," Gilon said. "In safer lands, some of them leave their mountains quite often, but they have no reason to announce themselves to us. As a younger man, I believed like many others that there _were_ no dwarf-women. I thought only of what I had seen with my own eyes, and there are Men in town even now who still say that the Dwarves breed with rocks in the mountains. They repeat the lie only because they are too stupid to ask their own wives and daughters… not that their wives and daughters would tell them the truth. I tell you that there is not a woman in town who does not know of my Nan, and half of them have been to visit her long before their wedding day. They don't tell their men when they come here… or why."

Gilon laughed again, and Betta forgave him the hint of scorn in his words. She knew that he did not laugh at the women and their secrets; his scorn was for the men who lived with them and were willfully blind to the nature of things. There had been no dwarf-woman dispensing her herbs in Lebennin, but the Easterling refugee women did not sell only ribbons and bracelets, and every small village that they did not visit had at least one old widow or granddame who had built herself a fine, lonely cottage with an herb garden behind.

"But you asked me how I met my wife," Gilon went on. "It was near twenty years ago now, and my heart was young enough to be susceptible to such feelings. I had taken a wagon of iron nails and tools into the farmlands east of town. My father spent his winters forging nails by the barrel-full out of scrap, and when there was no work for me at home, I would drive about and see who had a need.

"On this day, I had sold nearly all my stock, a handful here, a small sackful there, and collected a fair price for them all. I was on my way home, an hour from sunset and ten miles from town, when I came upon an overturned cart in the road. Two dark-skinned dwarves stood looking anxiously at the broken wheel and speaking strange words to each other.

"Had my father been with me, he would have ordered me to drive past, but I could see that these were foreign dwarves, and I was curious to know their story. Thrain's folk had been long in Ered Luin, and I feared another invasion of eastern Dwarves would destroy what business my father had left. I called out to them and stopped to offer my help.

"Of course, they did not trust me at first – nor for a very long time after – but I was a young man alone and had an empty wagon. More than that, I was willing and they had no other help coming. They told me that their horse had been spooked by a wild dog that had run out of a nearby field. The dog was in evidence; one of the dwarves had shot it with an arrow, but the horse had broken its ropes and fled. The wagon was overturned and its contents spilled into the ditch. The dwarves had recovered what they could, but being only two they could not leave their goods unguarded and neither one of them was willing to leave the other alone. They had been arguing for some time before I arrived, I guessed from their looks, and so they were willing to accept the service that I offered it. The more so when I asked for no payment.

"My wagon was empty of all but a few barrels. We loaded up their goods in good time and set off for the mountains. I had no suspicion that they were anything but what they said: two dwarf merchants who had traveled in caravan from the east, and who had left their larger company behind in order to visit their kin at Ered Luin. I did think it strange that two so strange-looking dwarves would have family in the west and said as much. I had seen no dwarves that looked as they looked. I spoke long and left many hints for them, trying to draw them into conversation and learn what was their true purpose, but… well, you know how tight-lipped a Dwarf can be."

Betta nodded. She thought it best not to tell him how early on in her own journey Kili had begun to speaking freely to her.

"Nan was more willing to talk than Frei, and she did admit that they had come from over Hithaeglir. That seemed a world away to me, a young apprentice who had never travelled farther than the boarders of the Shire. I liked the young dwarf-lad – as I thought Nan was then – even if his companion was silent. I drove them through town and right up to the Gates where other dwarves had been watching for them. I was given many thanks for my help, and by my new friend especially I was thanked. I rode home, thinking to myself that I had made a new friend. I even told him, before I left the Gates, that I hoped to meet him in a pub one day so that he might his thanks to me with ale!" Gilon's booming laugh echoed throughout the forge, and Betta could not help but join in at the thought of Nan wearing trousers and sharing a drink with the tall folk.

"_Did_ you meet her in a pub?" she asked.

Gilon shook his head. "I met her by chance a week later. I had gone to gather firewood in the woods above our farm, and Nan was there, foraging for her herbs, roots and bark. We met several times after and would talk together. I was very much surprised the day that she revealed to me that she was not a lad, but a lass! Though I suspect that she had already claimed me for her own,, and that was why she told me, but we were good friends at that time, and I needed little convincing."

"Indeed you did not," came Nan's voice from outside, "but your father needed more." She stepped though the doorway and into the forge. "Do not believe this tall man's tall tale," she told Betta. "He guessed that I was a woman long before I told him so, and he had no reason to be in those woods as often as he was when he met me. Who chops firewood in high summer!" She laughed. "But I did not come here to scold my husband or tell him that he should be working rather than spreading gossip to our guest. I bring you a visitor, Betta."

Nan stepped aside and Betta cried out in surprise and delight. She rushed out of the stall and into Kili's arms. He stood in the doorway and laughed as he held her, taking care not to crush her injured arm between them. After a moment, he pushed her back and said, still laughing, "Wait a moment, step back! Let me have a look at you. I am astonished!"

Betta looked down at herself in confusion. "What now? I have not changed in three days."

"But you have," he insisted. "I would have bet pure gold that nothing could convince you to put on a dress. And your hair! Do you know, I half suspected that it would be yellow once all that dirt was washed away? Indeed, you have changed, and I nearly mistook you for one of the tall folk-women from town. I would have if it were not for those muddy boots and that you smiled so wide when you saw me."

He was still laughing, but Betta's cheeks flushed hot with embarrassment, and she tugged uncomfortably at the heavy skirt. "My trousers were torn up by the journey," she said. "There were no other clothes for me to wear…"

"He is only teasing you," Nan said, interrupting them and giving Kili a sharp look. "No one could mistake you for one of those girlish creatures from town. You are as study as a farm lass and twice as fair, but you have got my boots full of mud, and I will not be the one to clean them tonight!"

"I'll clean them," Betta said quickly, but she was staring at Kili and had hardly taken her eyes off him since he first appeared.

It had been only three days since she had seen him, but he seemed new in her eyes as if a lifetime had passed. Kili, too, had changed out of the tattered travel clothes that he had worn and into a fine, new shirt and coat. He wore no sword at his belt or bow on his back, but she thought that she saw the hilt of a knife or two hidden. As changed as he was, seeing him again was proof to her that her adventures in the north had not been a dream. And if Kili were here, then Fili must be…

Kili saw her look suddenly toward the door, and his smile faltered. He shook his head. "I am afraid that my brother was too busy to come visiting today. Our uncle keeps him hard at work under the mountain, but he sends his good wishes, and this. It is only a little of what was promised to you, but the rest is sure to follow."

He took the small purse from his pocket and handed it to her. It was heavy and jingled with the sound of many coins. Betta stared at it, and Kili half expected her to refuse the gift or argue that it was too much, but she did neither. She turned and held it out to Gilon.

"This is yours," she said, "not mine. If I cannot work, at least now I might pay you in money for all that you have given me."

But Gilon crossed his arms and would not take it. "What we have given you, we gave without thought of payment. The money is yours and yours alone. We do not need it."

"We shall see about that," Nan said. She took the purse from Betta's hand and shuffled a few of the coins out onto her palm. It was not for her own sake; Kili knew that the dwarf-woman could have told the value of the purse from the weight and sound of it alone. No, Nan turned her hand toward Betta, letting the light of the forge fires play over the bright gold and tarnished silver.

"You'll be able to pay for your own things with your own coin, now," Nan said to her. "You might buy clothes to your own liking, though I'll not object if you decide to spend a bit on sugar or candles for the farm." She poured the coins back into the purse and dropped the purse into the deep pocket of Betta's borrowed skirt. "But if you would have my advice, you will put most of it aside and keep it safe. Who knows what needs you might have in future days?"

Kili was grateful to Nan for her prudence. It was Betta's money to do with as she pleased, but he knew that Fili would not like to hear that she had given it all away. He kept his thoughts to himself and said only, "I am sorry that I could not change more of it for town money. It could be dangerous for Betta to spend gold coins. Many Dwarves have seen her face, and they will wonder where she got the money…"

Gilon smiled. "As for that, no Man or Dwarf would ask why Gilon has gold coins," he said. "I trade with many merchants on the road and, like any man, I buy my coal and ore from Dwarves."

Kili nodded. Betta still stood close to him, and she looked at him anxiously. "How is your brother?" she asked. "How is it with your uncle?"

Kili hesitated. He had much to say on that subject, but he did not like to speak of family business with Nan and Gilon listening. He might have told Betta but she did not need any more troubles than she already had.

"Thorin is still angry," he said, "and we are worked very hard, but much of it would have been waiting for us anyway. We have been gone for many weeks, remember, and many things were left undone in that time. Indeed, as much as I would wish to stay, I have tarried long enough and must get home before I am missed."

He smiled at Betta and put his hand on her shoulder. "I am glad to see you are safe and well." His eyes drifted to her right arm, but he did not ask about that. "I will see you again. Good day." He bowed to Nan and nodded to Gilon.

"I will walk with you to the hill," Betta said. Kili did not object, and the two of them walked together out of the forge. Betta did not see the sad look in Nan's eyes or the way that Gilon shook his head as he put his arm around his wife.

Betta walked with Kili through the muddy yard, through the farm gates and up the road toward the hill. The sun was falling toward the western horizon, and the sky seemed dimmer than before, but the cold wind did not feel so bitter to her now that she had Kili beside her. He spoke lightly of the mountains, of the work that he did there and the careful watch that had been kept upon him and his brother in recent days.

"I think that Thorin fears that we will up and disappear again if he lets us out of his sight," he said with forced cheer. "He cared little enough while we were gone, but now that we are back under his thumb, he is determined to keep us there."

"Then he will take you both with him to… into the east?"

"He has not yet decided on that, but it is only a matter of time." Kili looked up at the hillside. "Look at all this green grass! Is it Spring already?"

Betta sighed and did not press him with more questions. He had grown close again, begin back among Dwarves, though his smile was as open and friendly as it used to be.

They reached the bottom of the hill and stopped at the place where the road began to slope up the steep path. Betta stood in front of Kili and looked into his face. "There is something you are not telling me," she said, searching his eyes, "something that you would not say when Nan and Gilon could hear it. You hardly speak of your brother at all. What has happened in the mountain? Is Fili not well? Why did he not come here with you?"

"Fili could not come. I told you that," Kili said, unable to meet her gaze. "He is well enough, though he could be better if Thorin would relax his grip on our time. He works Fili too hard and he…" He sighed and looked at her. He saw the worry in Betta's wide eyes and knew that he could not tell her the truth. "My brother is well. More than that, I cannot say. I no longer know with any certainty what is in his heart. I have not known for some time now, not since he gave it to you."

Betta's face fell, and Kili's heart ached to see her suffer. But still, he told himself, her cheeks were red and she was gaining back the weight that she had lost in the north, not like Fili who was pale and seemed to waste away with every passing day. Betta's eyes were sad, but they were not sunken and lost as Fili's eyes looked now.

"Frei said that I should forget him. She says it would be better for him if I did."

"And what do you say, Betta?"

She shook her head. "I cannot," she said. "Not even if Fili came here himself and swore that he would never see me again. Not even if he forgot me could I forget him…" She looked at Kili and smiled sadly. "Perhaps I _am_ like a Dwarf, as you and your brother so often have said. I have given my heart away and am too old to grow another for another man. Tell Fili that if he will not come to me, then I will find some way to go to him. And if neither can be done, then at least he must consent to send his brother to keep me company. I am lonely here, Kili. I miss my friends."

"Fili could not come to you today," Kili said. "He may not come for many days, but he has not forgotten you." He did not tell her of the golden pendant or of the many hours that Fili had already spent laboring over it for her. "I will bring you more money when I can, for there is much gold that is owed to you, even if Thorin will not pay it." He smiled and took her hand. "I will bring my brother to you," he promised. "I do not know how or when, but I will find a way."

He pressed her hand and then turned his back and started up the hill. At the top, he looked back, but the road was deserted and the farmyard empty of all but a few goats and chickens. Betta had gone.

* * *

**Oh, wow, can you believe that it's December already? Almost time for BoFA! And almost two whole years since I started writing these stories. ****REVIEW! Share the love. I know that there's a comment burning a hole in your keyboard, just waiting to be typed ;)**

**-Paint**


End file.
